You’re on
a first date.
It is going AMAZINGLY well. Not only do you find them extremely attractive and charming, but you have a lot in common and the conversation flows without a pause or awkward moment. They make you laugh and they treat the server well, which is always a good sign. They are flirtatious without being too direct or obvious and it is clear that what you are feeling is definitely mutual.
You escort them back to their home and it becomes obvious that neither of you want the evening to end, so they invite you in for a coffee. You agree and walk through their door and into their living room. They go to get coffee and you walk over to take a look at their bookshelf, which is full of different titles by different authors on different subjects. You see a lot to like there, but then your eyes meet the shelf that is seemingly devoted to the entire bibliography of Ayn Rand. Not just Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, but seemingly everything the creator of Objectivism has written–all in what appear to be pristine and probably expensive first editions.
Do you stay
for the coffee?
She might end it when she finds out you’re a statist, or she may not because she can accept you’re just a poor misguided soul and move on from that.
Stay or don’t. Whatever. But man is this entire premise pretentious as hell. Heaven forfend that, maybe, she reads an author she doesn’t agree with. (could be, you don’t know, you’re too busy judging her in your head) Not everybody is interested in going through life lockstep in an echochamber where they only ever hear shit they agree with.
Good lord.
I’d say stay. They could be using it as a part of some academia dissertation, and who knows what the main thesis of the matter is. I only say this because my friend is getting a PhD in Holocaust studies, and all of her books on Nazis and Dr. Mengele would seem entirely disconcerting to an outsider.
Yes. In part because I don’t think Ayn Rand is that horrible (admittedly, I’ve only read Atlas Shrugged – but did find it expanded my own world view), and in part because, even if a difference in values may prevent a relationship it shouldn’t prevent a friendship – one that will expose me to a very different perspective to my own. In this day and age, people seem all too happy to surround themselves with people and news sources that support the things we already believe (and technology has only made that easier to do). We should be more willing… Read more »
Stay. You’re having coffee, not proposing marriage. There’s no need to be rude.
Stay for 45 minutes and then say something about how you’d love to keep chatting but you promised a friend that you would help them train for a 5k the next morning (or some other universally-acceptable excuse) and you would feel terribly guilty for blowing them off.
Nobody’s feelings get hurt – everybody wins. Except Ayn Rand.