I bought a cup of coffee at a café a few days ago. This simple act is insignificant for most people, but I almost never drink coffee. I visited the café because I’d just picked up an anthology of short plays by Tennessee Williams, and I wanted a quiet place to read; it seemed rude to take up a table and not buy a drink.

As I sat sipping and reading by myself, I thought how coffee always seemed to me to be a sign of maturity. As a kid, I recognized coffee as an "adult drink", just a tiny step down from beer and liquor. During high school, my friend Dan, a year my senior, perpetually carried around a travel mug of the brew. Secretly I viewed it with some suspicion; in my mind, a high school kid was too young to be drinking coffee. But I always put the appropriate age for coffee consumption into the future: even in college, I never felt like I was "old enough" to drink it.

As I sat in the café, reading Williams and drinking coffee, it finally hit me: now, at age 23, I am a mature adult.

Maybe I was always right: as an 18-year-old, perhaps I was too young for both coffee and college. This morning's epiphany reinforced a long-held belief that kids are pushed into college -- and out the other side, into the dreaded "real world" -- far too early and far too fast, before they even really know themselves. What hope do they have to make any real decisions about their futures?

How do you really know you're old enough to drink the coffee?





(True confessions: this is actually cross-posted from my blog. But I thought it was one of my more...interesting entries, so I re-posted it here.)

i drink coffee. not because i think it makes me mature, but because i love it. but your point of view makes a lot of sense. i know a lot of people who don't drink coffee because they still want to be "young".

I am a coffee virgin myself. When I was younger, my parents always told me not to drink coffee because it would stunt my growth. Since I was a really small kid, I figured the last thing I needed was to drink something that would prevent me from getting much taller.

Later on I figured it was a bunch of BS, but I never really had the desire to drink it. Water quenches my thirst just fine. I don\'t need a shot of caffeine in the morning, nor do I want to become an addict. I\'ve been in a Starbuck\'s two times in my life (didn\'t order anything of course). Both times, I felt like I was in a foreign place.

I\'ll probably start drinking coffee sometime in the future, but I doubt I\'ll become a mature adult anytime soon. Who knows though, maybe my first coffee drinking moment will be as profound as yours. I\'ll let you know if it is.



(True confessions: this is actually cross-posted from your blog. But I thought it was one of your more...interesting entries, so I re-posted it here.)

I try to avoid coffee, since I heard coffee stunts your growth.

As it turns out, that's a myth.

Perhaps I became old enough my second or third year of high school when I found myself unable to function without it in the mornings. Though to be fair, I didn't start drinking it black until college when I'd wake up on someone's couch, desperately in need of caffeine, and there was nothing to put in it. This morning a couple of friends and I visited the Days Inn and their continental breakfast where the coffee was bad enough that I couldn't drink it.

buncha f****ts..

who the h3ll care.. YAAAHHOOO.. justt drinkkk ett..

I always thought the same way. Being short and young looking I think I wanted to "drink the coffee" to help me mature. I ma constantly trying to prove myself despite my size. Mainly by beating people up which I successfuly do. Or atleast at home. Where i ma the youngest.

I'm still not old enough for coffee (both literally and metaphorically). In high school, drinking Starbucks was the "cool" thing to do and I went there occasionally.

I only drink coffee for the caffeine if I need to cram for an exam and I'm terribly sleepy. Otherwise I like to stick with my minimum 7 hours of sleep and I'm good. I do drink coffee at other times though, but mostly just for my pleasure and not for any other purpose.

Well, for the side effects, I'll try to drink decaf now.

i started drinking coffee when i was 15 years old. i didn't drink it everyday, not even every week consistently. just once in a while and my parents didn't mind. i liked the different flavors. i didn't get all hyper active and think i was hot stuff 'cause i was drinking coffee. i guess that's when i was decided i was old enough to drink coffee. i still drink coffee every now and then but i'm more into tea. i like chai with tapioca pearls. mmmmmm. i just got into those too.

i started drinking coffee when i was 13. it was just something that everyone else in my highschool drank everyday. i guess, to me, coffee isn't really an "adult drink"..the way alcohol isn't either.

To be honest, I never thought about coffee too much a kid. The first time I tried it was when I was thirteen, and the only reason I didn't continue to drink it was because it was nasty. I didn't acquire a taste for coffee until late in my college years.

Also, even when I was younger, I had cousins who were either a little older or a little younger who were allowed to drink coffee. They weren't chronic coffee drinkers, but my aunts would let them have a small cup in the morning or some other special occasion. I never thought much of that either.

i love coffe. i've drank it for a long time, but i don't think i've really enjoyed enjoyed it until last year. i don't think i'm addicted or anything really. i brew my own every morning, and prefer it black. the second i take the first drink and smell it my body feels like it automatically is less tense and more relaxed though.

I don't think I could ever be a coffee drinker. I hate the smell of it. My father always drinks his dark... he buys the darkest Folgers and it smells up the kitchen when he takes the lid off.

That's why I started growing a beard in college. You see, at the time, I was playing a lot of World of Warcraft. I went home for spring break, and played WoW almost the entire time. I wasn't going anywhere, so I didn't feel a need to shave. When I came back from break, I had a ten-day-old beard. Since I had classes, I shaved it off. But then I looked at myself in the mirror, and I looked really young. Here I was, this short, clean-shaven freshman. At least with a beard, I looked a few years older. So I ended up growing it back. The rest, as they say, is history.

I actually kinda feel the same way about kids getting pushed into college. There are plenty who survive just fine in college going right after high school, but there are even more who flunk out their first year. I know a lot of people who dropped out of college and came back a few years later with a new perspective.

Yeah, I don't know if 18-year-olds can really be expected to fully grasp the weight of the future.

Then again, when I was an 18-year-old freshman, I did know my strengths, and I did know what I wanted. Then I got off-track when I was 20. And now at 23, I've gone back around to my 18-year-old self...

At 18, I felt like I was in the right mindset for school, I just had this idea that I needed to be out running around chasing the idea of marriage. Apparently I thought that was more important and it distracted me quite a bit. It took me another three years to be able to look back and fully grasp that I truly was not ready for that - I had my priorities way mixed up.

I think I was too focused on...I dunno. I'm not sure what. I just know that going into college, I had a good idea of who I was and what I wanted...and then I lost touch with that.

Hey, I drink coffee. I can because I am older than you =P...

But, yes, coffee has such profound effects on us all.

Fae? Holy shit! I haven't seen you around here in forever!

=D Yea, the one and only. Hi =]

I got bored at work... ~.~... can i go home now?




OH, and i'm glad my account is still active.. i thought it would have gotten deleted or something.. i've been inactive for like.. two years? maybe more?

Haha, thankfully we still don't delete accounts for inactivity. Good to see you. <3

Wow, everyone's coming back!

Honestly, I never thought of it that way. I started drinking coffee because my dad has always drank it and one day I tried it and liked it. I began drinking it in my first year of high school, but not seriously and often until my senior year as I started working at a coffee place. Then university came, so yeah...and I now work in another coffee shop, therefore more coffee for me. =p