Saturday, Aug 30, 2008
We've all been majorly smitten with that hot barista or bartender. Inside the steamy (literally) world of customer service lust.
Oct 7, 2004 | If I were to pinpoint how it was that I found myself making out with the guy from the running shoe store, I'd say it had a lot to do with when we went outside so he could see me run. In jeans and a sweater, I jogged up the sidewalk as he figured out which shoes would fit me best. The guy was so laid-back and so nice that I felt only moderately dorky, plus he was really cute. Then it emerged -- be still my heart! -- that he was a competitive runner. What can I say? By the time he'd laced up my shoes and gently eased my feet into them, I was deep in the throes of a customer service crush.
The customer service crush can spring into existence just about anywhere: restaurants, banks, video rental stores, even airplanes. My personal favorite is the over-the-phone computer-help-desk guy. As your hard drive melts down, you're so vulnerable and emotional, and he's so clinical and competent -- how can you not become smitten? The customer service crush is the girl at the dry cleaner's with the French accent, the guy at Kinko's whose dirty, shaggy hair is dirty and shaggy in a good way. These people are extra friendly to us (or maybe alluringly unfriendly), and their place of employment can provide an automatic common interest: You drink coffee? Oh my God, I drink coffee, too! Or, as 29-year-old Rich, a Web content manager living in Boston, puts it about the Eastern Mountain Sports (EMS) store employee who struck his fancy, "I think a lot of it was that she could talk about tents with great ease. Had I met her under other circumstances, it might not have prompted me to go back three times and leave a note."
The intensity of the customer service crush, not unlike the terror alerts issued by the Department of Homeland Security, can range from low (you forget that the object of the crush exists when you're not patronizing his or her establishment) to severe (you're so obsessed with the mechanic that you're taking your car to Jiffy Lube three times a week). But if you've never had a customer service crush at all, you might want to check your pulse to make sure you're still alive.
Among the reasons for these crushes, certainly, is convenience. "You have this stationery target for your affection," says Jim Behrle, a currently unemployed 31-year-old who used to work at a bookstore and also lives in Boston, of his fondness for coffee shop baristas. "They're sort of stuck behind the counter and have to be nice to you." There's also the plausible deniability quality of the flirtation: If you strike up a conversation with someone on the subway or in a bar, you're hitting on them. But if you chat with the deli guy as he slices your smoked turkey, well, you were just being polite.
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