Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An ode to that “coffee friend”

tiramisu.bearblog.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 264 posts

Re: An ode to that “coffee friend”

#121

Post by paganel »

gambiting wrote: post #116
paganel wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was the nerd-ish type as a teenager back in 1990s Eastern Europe and I don't remember getting bullied. I knew things were slightly different in the US, I mean the whole "cool girls" group thing and all, as we were able to watch stuff like Saved by the Bell [1] on TV, but that kind of atmosphere seemed strange to us at the time. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096694/

Same exact thing for me. Nerds definitely weren't getting bullied, if you were good at maths and physics maybe girls weren't into you but the "bullies" didn't really mess with people who were good at sciences(I guess partially because they had to copy their homework from someone, so keeping good relations with the "nerds" was actually a good survival strategy)

> I guess partially because they had to copy their homework from someone, so keeping good relations with the "nerds" was actually a good survival strategy

I was about to also mention the "copy homework" part, but I thought that would have sounded too specific, certainly glad that I wasn't the only one to whom that happened :) I've had a former highschool colleague thank me for everything I had helped her with during high-school at our 20 years reunion recently, she was a very smart person back then (still is) but the Physics classes just weren't for her.

Re: An ode to that “coffee friend”

#122

Post by unwind »

lukego wrote: post #101
muzani wrote: post #55

I assume everyone is a "chocolate friend". If they aren't, they'll let you know.

Any time someone gives me chocolate as a gift I say a polite thank-you and then discretely throw it in the trash. Maybe I'm an outlier, or maybe not...

You forgot the why-part, which certainly seems on topic in this thread.

a) You just don't like chocolate and never eat/bake/cook with it,

b) You really like chocolate but only very particular/fancy kinds that people never manage to gift you,

c) Sonething else that would be actually interesting to hear.

Re: An ode to that “coffee friend”

#123

Post by RF_Savage »

switchbak wrote: post #68
abrookewood wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other thing that's great about having friends like this, is that they've done all the hard work for you! You can just adopt their setup/approach (within reason) and can be fairly certain that you are going to get a good result without needing to put in months of research.

That's most of the benefit of putting "Reddit" at the end of a Google search for an esoteric subject. I love when someone has outrageously strong opinions on things I know very little about.

And it works fine as long as they are not just parroting some strong opinnions to feel part of the group.

But those reddit threads often do include some research and references, so one has a jumping off point for one's own search with some keywords.

Re: An ode to that “coffee friend”

#124

Post by unwind »

m463 wrote: post #4

I like this. coffee is something like a hobby and a shared experience and can pull together even really different people. But if you know someone who is into a very technical hobby, it might be hard to give them a gift, or have a lengthy conversation. I knew a friend who was really into ranch dressing. Every time we went to eat, we knew what he would order, or could help him order. silly thing that enhanced the relat…

Wow that was odd and very specific. How did that work in practice? Would you order whatever dish that said it came with ranch?

Re: An ode to that “coffee friend”

#125

Post by CTDOCodebases »

foobarbecue wrote: post #85
CTDOCodebases wrote: post #73

This will sound so unappreciative but if you are going to bother gifting someone something they are into maybe talk with them and understand what they like. Being "into coffee" before it was really a thing I can't count how many times someone has given me a bag of coffee that is roasted to taste like an ashtray many moons ago. It's not that I don't appreciate the gesture. It's just that I know I can't be truthful abo…

You were into coffee before it was really a thing? So 15th century?

Funny :)

I meant "a thing" like being a "foodie" became a thing. Before having an interest in something became part of someone's self constructed identity.

Re: An ode to that “coffee friend”

#126

Post by dazc »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #43
wfleming wrote: post #39

As somebody who has been “that coffee friend” and received far too many coffee-related gifts for years (including many pounds of stale, burnt beans), I wish people wouldn’t do this. If I’m super into topic X and you’re not, there’s a good chance whatever you get will either not be of interest (e.g. bad beans) or just redundant (I can only use so many mugs or grinders). Obviously the thought is always appreciated, and…

This is why I like the “lame” gifts. Once I got a towel. Only one, but still, I needed to get some new ones and now I get to delay shopping that while longer because who wants to buy towels? Awesome. People always think of gifts as fancy stuff. But if you can save me some time, or feed me, fantastic.

A friend of mine buys me t-shirts, always black. I never have to buy another t-shirt or worry what to wear each day.

Re: An ode to that “coffee friend”

#127

Post by yieldcrv »

fishtoaster wrote: post #47

I thing I decided late in life is that being really into things is cool. Something I'm rather sad about is that highschool kinda beat that attitude out of me. I was a classic nerd, including all the bad attributes that label comes with, but also one really good one: I was really into a number of things. But I learned from hard experience that being super into stuff was lame - being disinterested and too cool for stuf…

I always quizzically (but non-judgementally) dive deeper into people’s offbrand traits because I’m not sure if they are serious

I recently hired a gardener on taskrabbit, and he was too cool for it so I’m trying to figure out “really? gardening bro?” and turns out he is totally hooking up with women on taskrabbit. like the modern day milkman! he’s also interested in plants and will do the work.

so there is merit to trying to figure out what the edge is, where is the dopamine coming from that gets you to associate the interest with fun?

in my experience, its worthwhile being skeptical, I’m either missing something or this person is completely unrelatable in a dozen other ways.

Re: An ode to that “coffee friend”

#128

Post by 0x38B »

hysan wrote: post #114
andirk wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I needed to go to the DMV so my friend came back from Japan with a $1 gift for me: an ID of a cat wearing a tennis headband and bifocals. I would show bouncers who never thought it funny. My fave was one looked all over it and said "What?? Theres no birthday!"

Do you happen to know where in Japan your friend got that from? I know someone (including myself) who would love that as a gift.

I found what appears to be an actual ID card you order for your cat (1 - Japanese), (2 - translated). It even has a place to specify where they like to be petted!

May resolve GP's problem as it has a spot for the birthday.

1: https://pawmy.jp/product/cat-license/

2: https://pawmy-jp.translate.goog/product/cat-license/?_x_tr_s...

Re: An ode to that “coffee friend”

#129

Post by club_tropical »

benknight87 wrote: post #23

I keep notes whenever I have a good gift idea for someone specific. Example: during our trip to Chile, me and my girlfriend stayed at an Airbnb where they had a child's xylophone. My girlfriend loved to play it and even learned 3 songs before we left. I realized it would make a good gift so I wrote it down on a note titled "Good Gift Ideas" in Google Keep. A couple months later on her birthday I bought her a similar…

smart

Re: An ode to that “coffee friend”

#130

Post by tkgally »

The American writer Calvin Trillin wrote a short story called “A Christmas Shopping Tale” about how this kind of gift-giving might not always be welcome. It appears in his book Too Soon to Tell (1995). Excerpts:

“There was once a man named Arthur Robinson who was, as they say, very hard to shop for. He was a nice man, but as the Christmas shopping season began every year, his family and close friends and business associates grew to resent him. Arthur Robinson had no hobbies. He did not grill chicken in the backyard or bake bread, so the problem of what to give him for Christmas could not be solved with a new piece of kitchen equipment or an apron with witty sayings on it. ...

Then in October one year, Arthur Robinson made his first business trip to Africa. Having found himself about to return home with some local currency that was notoriously difficult to change in the United States, he plunked it down at the airport gift shop for the first items that caught his eye—two small statues of elephants. ...

That Christmas, all of his children gave him elephant statues for Christmas. He couldn’t imagine why, until he realized that he had put the elephants from Africa on a table in his study. ...

The year after that, he received nine elephant statues. A lot of the cards said, in addition to Merry Christmas, ‘For your collection.’ Arthur Robinson didn’t think he had a collection of elephant statues. ...

Arthur Robinson continued to thank everyone for the elephant statues—twenty-three by the fourth Christmas following that business trip to Africa. His family and friends had been greatly pleased to find something to get him for Christmas. ‘At least Arthur’s no problem,’ they’d say as they went down their lists. ‘Good old Arthur and his dreadful little elephants.’

Which meant that when they ran into Arthur during Christmas shopping season, they no longer seemed put out with him. They gave him a cheerful hello. He was always polite, but he resented them deeply.”

Post reply on HN