The People I'm Next To Are All Ready To Start Necking Each Other

I'm next to these people. Nine people to be precise, all of us morning patrons in a modestly busy coffee house. It's an almost eerily regular morning. For ease of reading, I'll make a roster: a dude in flannel shirt ordering and chatting with a pair of baristas, two folks just sitting and sipping on a couch, an older gentleman doing the crossword, two hip looking folks on their laptops, and some manic pixie lady with spiked hair and tattoos reading fucking Atlas Shrugged in a comfy chair.

Its kind of like this place is full of extras on a movie set pretending to be how people are supposed to be at a coffee shop, all just waiting for the protagonists of the film to pop in a stir things up with some drama. That said, I'm not complaining, the oddly trope-ish surroundings make for a weirdly familiar and cozy backdrop for my morning. Although after a little bit I realize there might be a driving narrative here that I missed, a few of them in fact.

To put is shortly, everyone in here is on the verge of making out. It's around nine am, and after a little bit I start to notice that most of the people here are wooing and being wooed. 'Most of the people' is an understatement, outside of me and the crossword geriatric, every person here is in physical contact with each other.

The pair of the laptop youths in the corner have had their knees glued together under their table. To clarify, they aren't actually glued, they are love glued. Oh, that sounds gross, forget I said that.

The a two baristas keep touching each others waists, and elbows as they fill mugs and steam milk. In between customers they keep brushing fingers and telling softly spoken jokes to each other, grabbing each other shoulders while they chuckle.

I have to choke back my own chuckle when I realize one of the couch couples are actually reading god damn poetry to each other. I thought they were studying, but I then I catch a few snippets of conversation that go something like, "Keats is so beautiful let me read you this one too." I guess they aren't really touching, but this counts in my book.

Atlas Shrugged and Flannel have stuck up a conversation and she keeps touching his chest. I can only assume that she is unabashedly quirky and he is about to be ensnared in a life changing and unexpected relationship ripped from any number of rom-coms that I secretly like, but never admit to liking.

I'm not certain if I should give the old guy a hickey or something to keep things in balance, but I'll hold off for now.

So yay, I guess its spring, but I'm kind of kicking myself for missing all of these at first. Normally spotting dates is my favorite creepy hiding in plain sight voyeurism, and that's from a fairly long list of creepy hiding in plain sight voyeurisms that I enjoy. I'll admit that not immediately noticing this pandemic undercurrent of lust is at least in part due to me being a bit rusty. I took an extended vacation from being next to people, but I'm back to privately eyeing the public.

Also, sorry again for love glued.

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