Understanding people has not led me to like them, as I had hoped. Actually, I feel even greater contempt than when they were an irrational mystery.
A couple of tables over, there is a 25ish woman trying to contain her crying while her steely-eyed friend sort of comforts her, if you could call it that. Across from her are two immaculately dressed lawyers.
I don’t even have to ask if it’s a divorce anymore. This is Minnesota.
She and her friend are dressed like trash, as is the custom here for young children, collegiates, and wives. Many girls in Minnesota marry right after high school, the better to divorce before 25 as is also customary. I don’t think I’ve met an unmarried woman here (I use the word loosely) between 20 and 24, nor an undivorced woman between 25 and 35.
I see the single mothers everywhere. They chastise their 5-year-old children with biting sarcasm, rather than a punishment the children can comprehend (it starts with an ‘s’). They snap at perceived slights, or even the inanimate inconveniences of nature. They generally act like joyless, walking human refuse.
I see it over and over and over. It fucking disgusts me in a way I haven’t felt since dropping out of the University of Michigan during a depressive episode. I can’t decide which scenario is more pathetic: American marriage or American education.
On the other side of the coffee shop, another young couple is courting. The man has a military haircut.
Aeoli Pera 
You've got a shallow level of understanding people here though. Along with knowing some shocking statistics about Minnesota marriage, you also see the ugly end result. If you actually met and spent time with this soon-to-be-divorcee, I bet you'd have more compassion.
We should hate the statistics and love the people regardless of how foolish they really are.
Ugh, fine. The part that bugs me is that you're right.
Thanks for the linkage man.
No worries.