I don’t think I’ve ever taken a leap so far into the persona of creepy stalker as I’m about to do right now. Prepare yourself for an ode to a boy I have never uttered more than my drink order to. But before I put myself in the position to never step foot in Stella’s again, let me set the record straight. In (500) Days of Summer fashion, this is the story of girl meets barista; you should know up front, however, that this is not a love story — it’s a one-sided affair with music taste.

A year ago, the confines of the library became too boring a place for my studies. I ventured out to a smaller and darker depth known as Stella’s Café. At this well-frequented coffee house in the heart of Collegetown, whoever is working as the barista is also in control of the music. On my first trip to Stella’s, a boy dressed cladily in a vest and slacks was serving up drinks and spinning the greatest playlist that had come across my ears in quite some time. It’s been so long since that fateful night that I can’t even recall a single song he played, but I know it made my Shazam suffer from major overdrive. For the rest of the spring semester, my nightly agenda included trips to Stella’s in the hopes that this barista boy would be deejaying up a storm of music perfection. And on many glorious nights, he was.

Through one person or another, I learned that this boy, this master of the music, goes by the name of Ethan, and I’m fairly certain that (1) he has no clue who I am and (2) he has no idea that he is the number one reason I’ve spent hours upon hours of my senior year thus far typing, reading and chit-chatting the night away in Stella’s. This Ethan character creates such wonderful music mixes that they’ve influenced me to spend most nights in Stella’s getting work done in half time. His music taste in bands is cookie cut for my enjoyment and, despite having spent countless evenings intently listening to his selections, the night is still yet to come when I don’t discover something new and awesome from his musical choosings.

The evening I fell completely head over heels for Ethan’s music taste was last spring on 4/20. I was sitting in the first booth writing an essay and, although the café customers didn’t appear to be celebrating the high holiday, Ethan supplied the soundtrack for such an event anyway. With obvious stoner classics like Tom Petty’s “Mary Jane” and Sublime’s “Smoke Two Joints,” and several less obviously fitting tunes like Kermit the Frog’s “It’s Not Easy Being Green,” I got quite a kick out of his selections.

But most nights he’s not crafting the tracks for his barista shift based on theme. Usually Ethan has a casual mix of just-the-right-thing playing. Though I may or may not have glimpsed at his computer and caught him using Pandora a time or two, I still must give the boy credit for picking superb songs that get an excellent playlist going off of the online-radio site. Whether self-made or not, the soundtracks that fill the atmosphere of Stella’s on the nights when Ethan is working are so pleasurable that I know that even come wintertime, I’ll have no problem leaving my warm and cozy apartment to study there.

Just so you can have a better understanding of the kind of musical taste I’m enthused about, Sondre Lerche, the Avalanches and Islands are a small few of the bands that have caused me to stop doing my work and just appreciate the goodness of someone else putting on exactly what I wanted to hear.

Yet despite all of my gushing about this barista and spending nearly every weeknight at the café, I haven’t been able to bring myself to make friends with him. So, in the most outlandish stalking fashion possible, I’ve decided to divulge my obsession to all of Cornell, knowing that it will finally force me to start a friendship (if he’ll have me) with this barista whose playlists tickle my ears. Seriously, my fanaticism for Ethan’s mixes have driven me so far as to half-jokingly, half-seriously mumble to my study buddies, “Ethan would never have played this” whenever a crappy song comes on and he’s not the one working. Also, I’ll have you know that, although I haven’t done a formal study, I’m a firm believer that the nights when people step into Stella’s to find nary a free table in sight are correlated with Ethan’s shifts.

There you have it. All of my creeper thoughts are now out on the table.

So before I’m never able to make another friend again, let me address this issue head on. Ethan: Thanks for filling my late nights with wonderful tunes! I look forward to many more heavenly Stella’s soundtracks during my last year around these parts and I hope I can find more baristas as friendly and well-versed in music as you are wherever my life may take me in the future. But in the meantime, for those of you who know Ethan, make sure he reads this. And for those of you who know both of us, assure him that I’m not crazy. Whoever successfully fulfills that last request, thanks in advance!