Hello Friends,

"Saying goodbye is never an easy thing," sang Taylor Dane in her 80s love ballad ‘Love will lead you back’.

Personally I think she might have broken up with her favourite café when she penned that song.

I mean come on, screw singing about partners. It’s sad to say goodbye and all but one of the most satisfying relationships you have is with your favourite café.

When something goes wrong with this, life can take the espresso track to Sadville.

You never know real pain until you leave someone with a caffeine addiction – not sure where you are going to score next and/or if it will be any good.

When faced with this situation some believe in abstinence and detox.

Before the break up you decide:

I’m going to detox. Why? Coffee is bad, I need to be cleansed and it makes me hyper.

The real reason though is that maybe the coffee has been bad for a while. Subconsciously you won’t have noticed how bad it has really got. You’ll just be one of those people who will be happy in a coffeeless relationship.

But let’s face it, you normally only feel like going on detox when you are in a boring relationship (with yourself or someone else).

When it’s good there is no way you think you want to give it up

The coffee was crap and it had been crap for a while.

In a case of café’s imitating long term relationships often your local has the same advantages and disadvantages.

The barista thinks just because they remember your name that you will be satisfied.

At first you love this, however as time goes on you can’t suppress your roving eye or the thought that you want someone who screams out the right name and hits the spot.

Then their pace slows down as the ‘intimacy’ grows. You think, "I’m not comfortable with this level of comfort. I find how comfortable you are extremely uncomfortable".

Yet still you wait because you have had some wonderful moments, even though the day is so much longer than a moment, my friends.

The impatience continues but you stifle it until they start slipping up. You are forced to wait. I’m too young to wait, I want it good on a daily basis.

Then you start to think "I know I’m close to you but we are not getting on".

"I’m not paying you to be unsatisfied. I want a service that serves me!"

There is a saying "familiarity breeds contempt". It’s often used in relationship articles.

I’ve always found this a hard thing to understand. Of course you are familiar with someone you are in a long term relationship with. This is part of their charm.

Again I think this was penned by someone in a tumultuous relationship with their café.

In one way it’s good to know them, in another you are still paying, you need your toast etc.

When it becomes so familiar that they get moody with you or they forget you don’t even eat toast and you can’t say anything because it kind of feels like you are part of the family and you don’t want a fight then things are coming to a head.

So there you sit hungover and hungry, looking at other people getting action before you while they mouth, "Sorry, gorgeous be with you in five".

"Things get weird, then you’re like do I say something," said my friend, a recent cafe divorcee (relationship status: four years).

"After a while I just got sick of being expected to wait because I was a local, I got sick of paying to be unsatisfied."

"You can’t blame anyone that the usual runs out of flavour," added another friend.

But you can decide to order elsewhere.

I am always amazed how you can eat the same thing every day for almost 18 months and then one day just decide you want to spit it out.

Nothing is wrong but maybe nothing was ever that right.

Can you turn up and say, "I’m confused"?

When it comes to dumping a café things are also harder because it’s best to just leave.

Yet any dumping that is dealt with a "let’s just never speak again" clause is karmacally locked in the twist.

What you make up for in ease (avoiding the talk) you get back in awkwardness (of not talking about it).

What are you meant to say? "I’m moving on" when clearly you have.

Can you start going somewhere two doors up?

What do you do when they see you walking past with a bigger cup in your hand?

You can’t hug a café. You can’t scream, "It’s not me, it’s you!"

When it comes to cafes some may say that Tootstar is on the rebound. I would say this could be true but in this period I have had the best coffee of my life.

It is also this period that you realise amazing coffee doesn’t mean you are comfortable with it yet and you could also face the terrible conundrum of meeting something extraordinary too soon.

You never think when something ends that you could meet something mind-blowing within a few weeks.

But you can.

I have known of my new café for years. One day I just popped in and my word I wondered why I had ever been anywhere else.

It was that kind of knowingness. I could see all the other cafes and why they were great but this was just more me than anywhere else.

However, I can’t bring myself to eat in it yet. It’s like I go, do the deed (order a large flat white) and scream "I’ll call you" to the barista before bolting out the door with my takeaway.

Every day for the last few weeks he has said,

"See you soon," as I walked out the door.

God damn it, I know you will!

I guess for me it’s the fact that I know once I sit down I will stay and there is so many memories of the last place that I need a while to process.

When I order I want the new menu to get my full attention.