The Man Who Thinks He Doesn't Know What He Wants

There's a particular kind of person who asks a barista for a recommendation, and I've watched it happen enough times now that I've stopped assuming it's coincidence and started finding it genuinely fascinating.

You can spot them before they've said a word. There's a flicker that crosses a good barista's face the second they walk in. Here we go. She asks what they like, what they can't stand, what they're hoping for. Real diagnostic work. Within a minute she's landed on something bright and floral, something with real acidity, matched so precisely to what they described that it's scarily accurate. They nod along. Agree with every word. The way people agree with a doctor right up until they're back in the car, deciding not to book the follow-up.

Only the gods know why they asked in the first place. The barista has just handed them the correct answer, described in their own words back to them not thirty seconds earlier, and their ego, unprompted, decides it knows better anyway. Even having just described the very bean now sitting in front of them, they reach straight past it for something else entirely.

There ought to be a governing body for this. Somewhere with a name, minutes, an annual review. Funded entirely by the collective guilt of people who ask for expert help purely so they can enjoy the brief pleasure of ignoring it. I imagine the meetings run short. Admitting the pattern out loud would mean admitting it has to stop, and stopping would leave a rather large hole where all these small decisions currently live.

Anyone who asks a professional for their honest opinion and then does the opposite on principle is, deep down, someone who has never once in their life been able to accept being helped without also needing to prove they didn't need it. It's not really about the bean. It's about maintaining the story that they got here on instinct, not advice, and that the recommendation was, at best, a second opinion they were kind enough to consider.

I've watched a barista ring one of these up and glance over at me. No words. Just the look two coffee nerds give each other when they've silently, unanimously agreed the sentence should be death.