The Barista Wrote My Name as “Michelle?” and I Have Not Emotionally Recovered

Am I Michelle or am I Michelle-question-mark now?

I watched a woman at the grocery store spend ten minutes arguing with a cashier about whether she was buying organic bananas or regular bananas. The cashier kept insisting they were organic. The woman kept insisting they were regular. They both kept pointing at the same bunch of yellow fruit like it would suddenly reveal its true agricultural identity.

Finally, the woman just shrugged and said, "Fine, I'm an organic banana person now, I guess."

And I thought, wow, what a weird way to decide something about yourself.

I had no idea I was about to have my own produce-aisle-style identity crisis at a coffee shop.

I walked into a new place—one of those hip spots downtown where the barista has neck tattoos and the menu is written in chalk font that's somehow cute but hard to read. Standard hip coffee shop vibes. I ordered my usual (large coffee, oat milk, mild dread on the side), and when they asked for my name, I said "Michelle" like I have for the past however many years I've been able to say my name.

The barista wrote something on my cup with the confidence of someone who definitely heard me correctly. He filled the cup and then handed it over with a smile.

The cup said "Michelle?"

Not Michelle. Michelle WITH A QUESTION MARK.

Like my own name was somehow uncertain. Like I had suggested it as a possibility rather than stated it as fact. Like I was a woman standing in a coffee shop, unsure of my own basic identity, throwing out potential names to see what stuck.

And instead of saying, "Actually, it's just Michelle, no punctuation necessary," I just... took the cup. Walked away. Accepted my new reality as Michelle-question-mark.

When you don't correct someone immediately, you become trapped in their version of reality. You can't circle back after you've already took your coffee and said "thanks" like everything was normal. At that point, you're Michelle-question-mark forever, or at least until you finish your coffee and can start fresh somewhere else.

But the damage was done. I spent the entire walk to my car wondering what it was about me that screamed uncertainty. Did I not say my name with enough conviction? Was there something in my posture that suggested I wasn't fully committed to being Michelle? Had I accidentally projected the energy of someone who was still figuring out her identity?

Question marks are infectious. Once someone puts a question mark after your name, everything about you starts feeling questionable. Your outfit choices. Your career path. Whether you actually like oat milk or just pretend to because it seems like the kind of thing Michelle-question-mark would drink.

I started spiraling. What if this was the universe telling me something? What if I wasn't living as my most authentic self? What if the real Michelle was buried somewhere deep inside, and Michelle-question-mark was just the confused, coffee-ordering version I'd become?

The worst part? I actually started introducing myself that way.

At the dry cleaner: "Hi, I'm here to pick up for Michelle... question mark?"

To the delivery guy: "Yeah, that's for Michelle? With the question mark?"

Like I was slowly transforming into a person who wasn't even sure of her own existence.

My friends thought I was having some kind of breakdown. Which, fair. Because I was definitely having some kind of breakdown. But not the kind they were thinking. This wasn't about the coffee shop or the barista or even the question mark specifically.

This was about how easy it is to let other people define you when you're not paying attention.

How many times have you let someone else's perception of you become your reality? How many times have you accepted a version of yourself that was based on someone else's interpretation, their assumptions about who you are?

The barista looked at me, made a split-second judgment about my name-saying abilities, and decided I was uncertain. And instead of correcting that perception, I just... absorbed it.

I became Michelle-question-mark because someone else decided that's who I was.

And honestly? That's terrifying.

Because if I can't even defend my own name—something I've had my entire life, something that literally identifies me as a human being—what else am I letting other people decide about me?

Am I the person who's "not really leadership material" because some manager once said that in a performance review? Am I the person who's "not creative enough" because a teacher mentioned it in high school? Am I “bossy” because an ex said that more than once in the relationship?

How much of my identity is actually mine, and how much is just other people's question marks that I never bothered to erase?

The dramatic solution would have been to march back into that coffee shop and demand proper name-writing protocols. To stage a one-woman revolution against punctuation-based identity theft. To become the kind of person who corrects baristas with the fury of someone whose entire sense of self depends on accurate cup labeling.

Instead, I decided to lean into it.

So I started ordering coffee as Michelle? I made it my email signature. I introduced myself that way at events and watched people's faces contort with confusion. I even updated my Substack profile.

Because being Michelle? is actually kind of liberating.

Regular Michelle has to be certain about everything. Regular Michelle has to have opinions and make decisions and pretend she knows what she's doing most of the time.

Michelle? gets to be uncertain. Michelle? gets to shrug when people ask her about her five-year plan. Michelle? can change her mind about everything and just say, "Well, I'm questioning it."

Michelle? doesn't have to commit to being a morning person or a night owl or someone who has feelings about whether pineapple belongs on pizza.

Michelle? is a woman of mystery, even to herself.

So I'm keeping the question mark. Not because some random barista gave it to me, but because I choose it.

Because maybe the most radical thing you can do in a world that demands certainty is to walk around with a question mark after your name and see what happens.

Besides, regular Michelle was getting boring anyway.

Michelle? is much more fun at parties.