As a frequent customer at Trader Joe’s, I found that sometimes the interactions at the checkout counter went from playful and polite, to something a little more romantic – something maybe too flirty. Upon my most recent visit, the cashier complimented my choice of snack, and we began bonding over Dried Chile Spiced Mango Slices. Before I knew it, the line between fantasy and reality had become blurred and I nearly lost myself in the heat of the moment. I realized I needed somebody there to wrench me from that lusty abyss and ground me in reality. I needed someone to help me get through those interactions with a single shred of dignity and without offering my number to someone who was being paid to be nice to me.
It was for this reason I opted to pay out-of-pocket to have an intimacy coordinator present.
It wasn’t just for my own benefit, it was for the employee’s benefit as well – not to mention Trader Joe’s as a whole, in helping them realize their vision of a flirtatious grocery store experience, without anyone getting unduly hurt.
Intimacy coordinators are a relatively new and highly important role found typically in the film and television industries. Their job is to protect and advocate for actors during intimate sex scenes, and ensure no one is operating outside of their comfort level, being exploited in any way, or experiencing pressure from the director or other actors to perform actions they don’t want to perform, but what I found is that it’s also perfect for checking out at port-themed grocery stores.
There’s nothing more hyper-exposed than getting vulnerable with the Trader Joe’s cashier about your plans for the evening that include a box of Joe-Joe’s cookies, a pint of Cookie Butter ice cream, and an alarming amount of Watermelon Jerky. Hopefully the supermarket industry will learn from the film and television industries, and start staffing intimacy coordinators as emotional safeguards for the rest of their customers too.
Ultimately, having an intimacy coordinator with me at Trader Joe’s enabled me to leave the store with my head held high, feel comfortable with whatever had just gone down between me and the cashier, and cut my post-checkout, “Wait, were they actually into me?” rumination time down immensely (not completely, but getting better). Moving forward, I plan to integrate the use of intimacy coordinators in more facets of my life to ensure I feel safe and comfortable in other hyper-exposed scenarios I might experience – like when the amusement park worker straps me into the rollercoaster, or when my therapist asks me how I’ve been.
