“You know how to get something from Kathleen?. If I should up with a pack of Marlboros, she is always happy to see me.”

My Scottish boss was getting ready to introduce me to our team member Kathleen for a project. As he reminisced about times he’d worked with her, he dropped this story.

Like a scene from a black and white movie during world war 2.

He was a kind man.  Is it such an old-fashioned custom to learn one another’s small pleasures? 

He knew how his wife took her coffee. I’m not sure all Scottish men are so considerate, but this is the stuff of romance novels.

I am thinking of the world of choice I live in. There are dozens of coffee beans, with a specific grind. Not to mention the brand of creamer. If I had to explain my preferences to someone else, it would be so precise as to be embarrassing.

How to pressing the buttons on the coffee machine in the precise combination to provide exactly the sort of beverage I have become accustomed to.

I could not presume to ask someone else to make me a cup of coffee in the way I like to drink it.

And yet this sweet man from Scotland had paid attention enough to a co-worker’s cigarettes. His old world charm is overwhelming.

I have created an isolated prison with my specificities. Is that precision worth it?

It is inconvenient to invite another person into my sphere. Sharing my home, and my sleeping arrangements with my husband requires compromises. I had to learn to arrange the bedding to give both of us what we need. He had to learn to sleep though the alarm I set for early morning.

Sometimes I snore. 

Sometimes he snores.

Of course we could sleep separately, and avoid the inconvenience. 

But we have decided it is worth it, so be close to one another, and let our lives overlap even if it’s not what I precisely want. The connection is worth adjusting my allowances.

Is it possible that I could change my requirements so that another person could join me in my coffee habit?

Chris doesn’t even drink coffee. I asked him how he would like his coke. 

The attention and to compromise are a formula for the kind of romance I want.