One of my biggest culture shocks in moving from Ireland to the Netherlands is around the usage of bars as social spaces.
At home I thought of bars primarily as a place to meet new people. I'd head down about once a week alone, with just my newspaper and a free afternoon, and generally end up chatting with someone about the news until we headed out for dinner together.
Even if I went out with friends I'd always expect to mix with another group or pick up someone who had been alone, then end the night partying further at the house of some strangers.
When I arrived in the NL I had assumed this was a universal thing, but quickly found myself being told off by strangers when I tried starting conversations, as they were "just out for a quiet drink."
This was very alien to me, though I quickly became accustomed to it and no longer go to bars except for drinks with colleagues after work, or when I'm in another city and visit the Irish pub for a sense of the old days that never quite materialises.
After a while I wondered if it was simply that I was getting older, but I recently visited home for the first time since before Covid. I went for a walk while visiting my mother and decided to stop for a quick Guinness while reading my book. I wasn't on the second page when a passing woman stopped to ask me what I was reading. I explained it was in Dutch and we had a whole conversation about her brother working in Amsterdam. I couldn't believe it! These experiences continued for the entire week.
I guess to bring it back to the article, the best bar in town is very culture dependant and can change drastically depending on what you're hoping to get from your visit there.
In the UK, it's a faux pas to talk about 'serious topics' (feelings, politics, etc.) with strangers. There is no danger of this happening, and if it does happen you're equipped to deal with it.
In the Netherlands, however, it's relatively common to talk about serious things. Even with strangers. This makes every conversation 'risky'.
My theory is that this is at the root of why the Dutch are generally not very good at small talk. It's scary, so we don't do it enough, so we're not practised.
Visiting the UK (from the US) it was pretty clear that the social boundaries were different, but the general nature of the game was the same - we're both guess cultures: you have to figure out what to say and how to say it.
In the Netherlands, conversation seemed much more unguarded. It's hard to describe but it's similar to a concept in the US of someone "having no filter" - basically, less verbal softening of uncomfortable/taboo subjects and more willingness to engage with them.
I actually find the Dutch way very refreshing in some ways. Soliciting critiques (e.g. "how does my new haircut look?") is a largely pointless exercise in the US because there's strong social pressure to say "it looks great" whether it's true or not.
I do wonder though if the Dutch way of making friends (as adults at least) has to be wildly different than in the Anglosphere, given how big a role those subtle social cues play here.
I don't know if its just me, but I personally never had a no-filter conversation in this country. Like if I ask someone about my hair or something, they always answer politely. There is still enough social pressure not to say a bad thing about other people. If I ask a question, the answer is always something which would be considered polite. May be not American polite, but still polite imo.
>> In the Netherlands, however, it's relatively common to talk about serious things. Even with strangers. This makes every conversation 'risky'.
Sometimes it's good to talk about serious things with someone not directly involved with your life (i.e. no skin in the game). People even pay for this as a service, I think it's called... um... therapy.
A friend of mine "admitted" to seeing a "talky doctor" because "there aren't any insightful bar tenders any more". This in the US.
I'm very happy as a software engineer, but if I could do any job in the world where money wasn't a consideration, I'd go back to bartending.
I worked a the closing shift at a very popular bar in the West village, NYC around 2007-2009. I had my regulars, the work was simple. I'd get to know them and learn about their lives. I made a bunch of friends. People I would have never met otherwise, because of social strata or just having completely different lives that wouldn't intersect otherwise.
I'm not a huge fan of smalltalk strangers, the kind that you might have with a stranger on the subway or someone at the dog park. But for whatever the reason, those weren't the kinds of conversations that were occurring late nights at the bar :)
Oh, definitely. I recently went to Japan and while I enjoyed the culture immensely, I can't help but notice a lot of people really aching for actual conversation. Something the Dutch generally aren't starved of with their direct and open (sometimes maybe blunt) attitude.
This is especially true in business situations. Although there is a very collective decision making process, it can be quite hierarchical. Often, if a manager has stated a position others will not disagree even if it is quite wrong. This is where drinking together comes in...
I've seen an engineer who had sat through a day of meetings on a topic holding his tongue until they went out for drinks after work (like most days). The moment beer touched his lips he broke into an angry tirade as to how terrible the decision was, and because we were "drinking" it was not considered out of bounds or reasonably punishable insubordination. Of course sexual harassment can have similar in/out of bounds elements so it's not like strict rules, boundaries, and exceptions solve all problems.
It's kind of jarring to me that this sort of thing could be anything more than an outlier. Do companies like this not have anyone who's an alcoholic, pregnant, not fond of bars, etc., or are they just fine with cutting them out of the actual decision making process?
My favorite boss ever would sit and drink with me and a few of my peers after work regularly. Some others wouldn’t join us, for their own reasons. He made sure to spend more time listening to their opinions in the office though, and he had their complete trust. Now, we may not have heard quite as unfiltered commentary from those folks since they didn’t choose to drink, but that’s by their choice. It’s better to have some honesty from half your subordinates than none.
I don’t mean this at all as an inflammatory hot take, but drinking with people builds bonds in a very effective way which is very hard to match inside the office environment. I acknowledge though that there are obviously big problems with drinking as well and not everyone should do it.
I'm going to preface this by saying that I also don't mean any of this as inflammatory or a personal attack, and I fully believe that you had nothing but good intentions, but it doesn't really seem like you've fully viewed most of what you've said from the perspective of someone who doesn't drink at all.
The claim that people wouldn't feel excluded and disfavored for not attending but frequent social bonding over drinks because its optional is impossible for you to objectively evaluate. Of course you weren't aware of anyone having anything less than "complete trust" in your boss because of it; why would someone who felt that your boss was favoring those who drank with him tell you? People who perceive they're not part of a special social clique aren't going to go complain to the exact people who are then ones making them feel that way. It's not impossible that you're correct, but it's hard for me to imagine that someone would feel comfortable sharing negative feelings about the boss with you when you seem so confident that no one could possibly have any issues with the arrangement; if I were in that situation, I can't see myself even considering trusting how I really felt about it about it with a coworker who couldn't seem to even conceive of those feelings on their own.
I can see how I could have been in the dark about someone's true feelings if they weren't in a "clique" that I was in. In my exact case though, I felt like the 'clique' wasn't just the people who liked drinking at the bar, because we also had lunches including those non-drinkers, zoom happy hours (2020!), etc. I mean, drinking alcohol itself is optional even at a bar.
You're right that decision-making shouldn't be done by a committee delineated as "just the people who drink together" -- and that could be a real risk if this type of thing isn't being carefully considered.
However, the only guarantee against it than I can think of would be the far worse policy to simply ban all socializing after work, because the same thing could happen if 4 people took up after-work hacky sack and the others weren't interested.
I think socializing after work is fine in a lot of cases, but I personally feel like a manager should avoid anything that even has the appearance of playing favorites. I recognize that this is probably a much more strict ethical stance than most people will hold though; in a lot of places it's not even forbidden for managers to date their direct reports, which is even more obviously a conflict of interest.
I also totally understand that there's no requirement to drink at a bar; I just don't typically find them to be very fun environments. At least in the ones I've been to post-work hours, they tend to be loud and crowded, and I've always assumed that the only reason people tolerate them as a place to socialize is that drinking makes those aspects less annoying. Imagine if all your coworkers really loved comic books, and after work they always went to hang out in a comic book store, and you had no interest in comic books; you certainly could still go, but without actually being interested in what the venue provides, it's just not going to be particularly fun to hang out there.
I think the thing you're missing is that in Japanese culture this kind of interaction can't happen unless you're drinking. The social mores just don't allow these sorts of outbursts in any other situation.
This can be difficult to wrap your head around in the US because we don't have social rules anywhere near as strict as Japan and so empathizing with the experience is difficult.
You're probably right, although I'm not sure it's quite because of a lack of familiarity with strictness; I think I just prefer it distributed very differently. I think there's value in there being a spectrum of what's acceptable across different circumstances, but tying openness to an "optional" form of recreation seems very unfortunate.
Ireland is an independent country, not part of the UK.
Pubs in the UK are much less like this than in Ireland, which I also believe are quite special. There are pubs like this in the UK, but they're less and less common the larger the town you are in - which (my pet theory) correlates closely with the likelihood that there are people in the pub who don't already know each other anyway...
Edit for clarification: the more people are mixing in the pub, the more likely they all knew each other beforehand. Likely because it's a small town pub, although tight community pubs do still exist still in London - they're rare).
I'm from both Northern Ireland myself. I consider myself to come from both Ireland and the UK myself and carry passports from both the UK and the ROI. I don't understand why you would jump to argue my identity against me.
The Republic of Ireland and the UK are at peace and the portion of Ireland which is administered by the UK is done so with mutual agreement and recognition, with guarantees to the freedom of the people to choose their identity guaranteed by internationally recognised agreements.
You're comparing that to an active warzone. The comparison is really reaching.
Ukraine is a war zone now. NI has been at peace in practice since 1998. Both places have been invaded by an aggressive neighbor, rebelled, made peace, etc for hundreds of years.
Your comfort with the current NI situation doesn’t prevent historical comparison.
Yes, Ukraine is a warzone. That war is almost universally condemned.
Northern Ireland is at peace. Its constitutional position within the a United Kingdom is recognises by the Irish government, the British government and all of the other states of the world. This position was agreed through a referendum held for the people of the island almost 30 years ago.
Historical comparison doesn't come into it. The point your were raising was that there was a comparison to be made today to the situation in Ireland and the situation in Ukraine.
Even historically it doesn't fit. What "invasions" of Ireland are you talking about? Maybe John de Courcey's? In the 12th century without support from the crown?
Please note that I say all of this as someone who would vote tomorrow for a united Ireland without a second thought.
I'm sorry for lumping Ireland in with the UK. I've been to both England, Scotland and Ireland and in my experience the casual interactions were similarly positive in comparison to the Netherlands.
I guess I'd notice the differences more if I were to spend more time there.
This is actually one of the big no-nos of social gatherings in general in the US too.
You don't talk about politics, religion or money. There's no point. It's a no win situation because you're only going to make somebody angry, never change anyone's mind and everyone else in the room will be uncomfortable and/or leave because they just showed up to see everybody, share food, find out how life and family is going and have a good time.
This is also one of the main reasons that it's so easy to talk about sports.
I've found this is a generational thing in my social circles. The older generations have a philosophy of "you don't talk about politics, religion, or money" and, the younger generations, that's all they talk about.
I’m probably in between “the younger generations” and “the older generations” at this point in my life. One of the interesting observations I’ve made hanging around younger people is that they do seem to talk about politics quite a bit, but in a homogenous way. With older people, I know a number of right-leaning and left-leaning people and they don’t talk about politics with each other because they’ll just end up pissed off with each other. With younger people it seems they tend to form social circles that are very politically aligned, so no one’s going to get angry talking about politics. (Compared to, say, forming social circles around a baseball team or something like that)
Yes. In the younger circles, it seems like there's a very brief period of telegraphing your "tribe", and once you detect the matching cues you can assume you know pretty much everything about the other's point of view. To the point that there's no reason to discuss anything, you may as well both hold up a preprinted sheet listing out everything the "good" side believes.
Occasionally people will push on the extreme edges of that accepted area, maybe even commiserate on how some things are taken too far, but without ever really challenging the basic belief or seeking to find where the edge of reasonableness might be.
It's not horrible, and I'm just an old fogey whinging here. It just gets under my skin when I hear for the hundredth time a group of kids talking about stuff that I basically agree with, but taking it to the extreme without an ounce of self-awareness that they've crossed into the zone of ridiculousness.
In a way it's because I'm the same, I want "my side" to be more rigorous and intellectually honest than the "sheep on the other side", and it's uncomfortable to realize that the people who largely agree with me on the topics are so sloppy at how they got there. If something else becomes fashionable, they'll just adopt that instead. And if some question comes up, it'll be decided by what feels most in line with what they've already agreed to believe, regardless of the actual merits.
I guess I'll just worry about keeping them off my lawn.
> In a way it's because I'm the same, I want "my side" to be more rigorous and intellectually honest than the "sheep on the other side"
Man… I’ll preface this by saying I’m Canadian and that in Canada 80% of firearms deaths are intentionally self-inflicted. It’s a piece of important colour for what I’m about to say next.
I am a very left-leaning firearm owner in Canada and your comment perfectly describes my frustration. I have a few friends who will engage in a healthy discussion on the topic, but so so often it just turns into thought-terminating cliches and memes. And on the other side of it, many of the people I run into at the range are full of right-wing thought-terminating cliches, memes, and conspiracy theories. Urgh. Oh well, at least I can go out to the farm and put holes in boxes in peace!
> In the younger circles, it seems like there's a very brief period of telegraphing your "tribe", and once you detect the matching cues you can assume you know pretty much everything about the other's point of view
This is just a sign of a lack of sophistication, afaik it isn't purely generational
A couple weeks ago someone said to me that lying was a "violation of the first amendment" and I asked them "what's in the first amendment?" just to hear some dumbfounded response
A bunch of voters in this country are only functionally literate and it's depressing
> the younger generations, that's all they talk about
There's something to this, I think. For younger generations, politics has become an identity and seems to influence a significant majority of their life - including who they associate with, etc.
I enjoy the sport of the debate - but am very careful not to "get into it" with people who do not initiate that conversation on their own. Not everyone can have a debate and walk away at the end not thinking less of the other person.
My big issue with arguing about politics is that the vast majority of people seem to have no interest in an actual debate; they just want to rant about their positions regardless of what the other party says. This leads to extremely boring conversations.
I have a few close friends that I actually enjoy debating with because they will listen to arguments with an open mind and often make thoughtful arguments that cause me to reevaluate.
If someone I don't know well asks if I'm interested in anything politics related my answer is now a hard no, even though I actually do follow politics quite a lot. Those conversations practially always end up feeling like a waste of time, IME.
> I finally realized today why politics and religion yield such uniquely useless discussions.
> As a rule, any mention of religion on an online forum degenerates into a religious argument. Why? Why does this happen with religion and not with Javascript or baking or other topics people talk about on forums?
A huge part of youth identity in the US use to be from the music business.
I mean we use to even have goth bars, punk bars. Imagine a bar in 2023 that only caters to people who like industrial or punk music. It sounds absolutely ridiculous.
The music business though was also highly connected to all other art forms in terms of the visual arts, fashion, literature.
With the change in the importance of music it basically devalued nearly all art forms compared to what use to be.
It seems like politics stepped in to fill this void for the youth. It is such a boring and disappointing development.
It is also not good for politics either to have competing factions who at 20 believe what they believe with near religious fervor.
> The older generations have a philosophy of "you don't talk about politics, religion, or money" and, the younger generations, that's all they talk about.
Boy, I wish that were the case where I work. I'm an older developer, working closely with an ancient developer. He insists on talking politics at work. Since I prefer to get along with my coworkers, I won't talk politics with them. This guy just won't catch a hint, though. It makes conversations with him difficult as he keeps trying to engage me in these topics and I keep trying to change the subject.
> There's no point. It's a no win situation because you're only going to make somebody angry, never change anyone's mind and everyone else in the room will be uncomfortable and/or leave because they just showed up to see everybody, share food, find out how life and family is going and have a good time.
Total strangers will absolutely talk about all of that and more if they pass the vibe check regardless if they disagree. You don't have to agree to get along and have fun. The way someone carries themselves is precisely what makes them unique and interesting and its a vital skill to have. Bars are the tried and true institution for developing this. Go to any bar after midnight on a weeknight when the regulars are the majority instead. Nobody is talking about sports at that hour, and the friendships made are all the stronger for it. For those that can hang, that's a win.
Family gatherings or groups of friends have a risk associated with those conversations. Strangers don't. You don't have anything to lose with people you don't know.
The new people don't suddenly become agreeable doormats when they turn into a regular. They become friends. That's why they're friends (the honesty).
It's a sad state of social dysfunction that so many people are so afraid of disagreement. That aversion is the source of all the conflict because white lies only paint you into a corner.
Actual friends don’t care. I wouldn’t mind an extremely disagreeable drunk argument about some hard political stuff with friends. Would just write it off the next day.
Cutting people out of your lives too quickly leaves you with just boring agreeable people.
I dunno, I find that people are can be relatively open to talking about 'bigger' issues so long as it's framed in a way that departs from the normal polarizing frameworks we're used to engaging in.
Talking about politics in the sense of current party issues is either boring or divisive depending on the group. But talking about voting systems and social choice theory can turn out well, especially if you frame it around something that doesn't look like governance in a traditional state. E.g. "The recent Colorado river water deal was kind of undemocratic. But what would be a fair, democratic and reasonable way to make decisions around that kind of resource problem?"
"Which religion is right?" is a bad conversation starter, but nerdy people enjoy a question that departs from normal identifications, like "Judaism, Islam and sometimes Buddhism care a lot about engaging with religious texts in their original language, but Christianity cares a lot less. Does faith come with an intuition about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?" People aren't precommitted to a camp in an emotional way, aren't offended by disagreement, and are willing to think about something new.
Heh, in the Catholic Church this could jump you right into a current vicious divide between regressive “Latinists” who want to undo all of Vatican 2 (most relevantly, the change from holding mass in Latin to holding it in the local language), and the pope and actual church.
... but even if you're an old-school Catholic who wants Latin mass, is that consistent with a strong version of Sapir-Whorf given that the new testament was written in Koine Greek and Jesus and the disciples spoke Aramaic? I.e. if language limits which concepts you can hold, Latin may not be able to communicate same understandings as intended by the authors of the gospels?
These arguments are rarely about who's objectively right, but rather an ideological justification for a power struggle. Undoing "Vatican II" is largely about repositioning Catholic attention towards the wealthy end of the social spectrum, to make it easier to wield hard, temporal power; Latin mass is just one of the ideological wedges used to support that effort.
The Sapir-Whorf stuff has almost nothing to do with why some traditionalist Catholics prefer the traditional Latin Mass. (Also, the language spoken is not the only difference between the TLM and the post-Vatican II mass.)
I don't think you'd get informed takes on Sapir-Whorf, but people who already have opinions on Latin Mass and not linguistics might assume that you were referring to that topic.
Yeah but if your conversational partner wants to express an opinion without understanding the question, and who doesn't have the intellectual curiosity to ask about the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis then they encounter it, maybe you already weren't going to have a good conversation irrespective of the topic.
I found myself on occasions passionately arguing in a bar for some point diametrally opposed to my convictions just to have a good time with folks that are good people but probably wouldn't tolerate someone thinking differently from them on politics.
That's a very interesting idea, and one that I hadn't considered. And indeed, Ireland in comparison is a place where people try not to get too political in conversation for obvious reasons, especially in the North where I grew up.
Your comment reminded me of another story, from the first time I visited home after being over here for 2 years, bringing my Dutch girlfriend with me to show her around and share with her a better understanding of where I came from.
I grew up in Belfast, which outside of the city centre was strongly divided between Protestants and Catholics. I grew up myself close to an interface between two of these areas, where violence was so bad and so regular that a wall had been erected to keep the communities apart and keep them from fighting.
This was one of the things that was shocking to my girlfriend, as well as the paintings on the wall showing masked men with guns to denote who controlled the area. After talking and walking for a while she noted that she was curious about the paintings on "the other side."
I explained to her that, by the age of 27 when I left the country, there was large portions of the city that I'd never visited because I didn't feel comfortable going there. She argued that peace had long been found and that if we went there no one would ever even know where I was from, so I agreed and we took a visit to The Falls Road in West Belfast, a working class Catholic area which was important in the history of The Troubles.
We saw their wall, we saw their murals which were honestly less intimidating than the ones I'd grown up with. We got to the top of the road and explored some side streets, one of which had a house pub, a house that had been converted into a pub.
My girlfriend wanted to go in and get a real sense of the local life. I was honestly quite scared because, on my side of town, such bars were always strongly associated with a heavy paramilitary clientele and would be unwelcoming to outsiders. But, I guess being Dutch, she said "Come on, we don't have to talk to anyone, we'll just get a drink and enjoy the atmosphere and you can say you've done it." Again, I agreed.
We entered into a small dark room. We hadn't even ordered our drinks before the locals noticed we were having to think about what was available and became curious. As soon as my girlfriend opened her mouth with her Dutch accent we were asked by the group around the bar, and the barmaid herself, where we'd come from.
She explained that she was Dutch and was welcomed with a friendly joke about "King Billy," William of Orange who had fought in Ireland for the Protestant Ascendancy in the 17th Century.
While this was happening a man approached me from antother part of the room and asked if I was a musician, as I was holding a set of mandolin strings. We got quickly into conversation as he was himself a banjo player, and I had been curious about finding a bar to hear some traditional music as I had started playing it myself while living in Holland.
Another gentleman then joined us and asked us where we were staying and I, still feeling uneasy, was quick to mention that it was in South Belfast, a mostly neutral part of town. I was told we weren't the only non-locals in the bar that night as there was a boy from Scotland as well, and he was quickly pointed out.
Conversation flowed naturally on and eventually I was asked what part of town I was from, and I decided to be honest and say East Belfast. The latest gentleman to have entered the conversation assumed that I was from the Short Strand, a small Catholic enclave in anotherwise Protestant neighbourhood. He actually phrased it as, "What part of the Strand are you from?" to which I responded, "I'm not, I'm from the Other Side" and he asked immediately "What are you doing up here then? Are you not afeared?"
I explained that I'd left the country and seen things from the outside, seen that we were one people living on one island, and that I was here with my girlfriend who was Dutch and just wanted to see the whole city. He shook my hand and said, "Well, you're a braver man that I am" before moving to another table.
Soon after the first man I'd spoken to, the musician, came up and said he'd heard that I was Protestant. He too shook my hand and said "That's just the way it should be. I hope you'll come back again." We finished our drinks and left soon after, as we had agreed.
I'm still not sure what to make of it all. Sometimes I regret having left and contributed to the "brain drain" at home, not being there to do my part in helping with the peace process. But sometimes I look back on that day and feel that in some small way I did my bit.
There are still very actve paramilitary groups on both sides and the control they have over their areas is stll very high in Loyalist Protestant communities. Representatives from Loyalist paramlitaries are still meeting with the British government to discuss things like the Northern Ireland Protocol.
I am living here for a few years and I usually feel people here don't like to talk with someone they don't know. Which is totally understandable and thats how it is in most of the world except maybe America or England. There is something good about not getting disturbed by strangers when you just want to have a quiet day. But having said that, I do feel for lonely people(including me) here. So, after living here for few years I discovered this culture doesn't suit me, but I totally understand why it is the way it is.
The funniest story I heard about cultural differences is the clash of Irish and NL cultures.
A young Irish university student just arrived to his new apartment in NL for exchange.
Shortly after settling into his apartment, a Dutch woman knocked on his door.
She said “Hello, you must be new here. I want to let you know that we are having a party today.”
Excited about a potential party, he replied, “wow great! What time does it start? And can I bring something?”.
Dutch woman gives him a stare and raised eyebrow, “No, you are not invited. I just wanted to let you know there will be a party. If it is too loud please let us know.”
And that was how this young Irish man was introduced to the famous Dutch culture.
> One of my biggest culture shocks in moving from Ireland to the Netherlands
I've only been to Ireland once, but I absolutely loved how the local pub felt like the shared living room for the town. It was so different from my experience at most bars in the US (there are some that also fit this bill, but they're rare). I ended up going there every night I was in town for dinner and a pint, and some friendly chit-chat.
I had read elsewhere that in Iceland, the swimming pools fill that social role. They have a very strong culture surrounding that.
It seems to me there's basically no equivalent in the U.S. & Canada, or at least, not one that is consistent across the countries. There's a coffee shop "culture", but not in the capacity of striking up conversation.
We end up using contrived means to merely signal to one another that we want to talk (i.e. social apps). These would be rendered redundant if there was a "space" where this was expected. Maybe the virtualized always-online shift of daily life has destroyed this. I would grant that there are Irish Pubs in the area that are frequented by older regulars, where striking up conversation is probably more of an expectation, but young people don't go there.
Canada and the USA are generally still places where you can strike up conversation with people at bars and carry on a conversation about sports or whatever. It doesn't really get much deeper than that, though, and good luck running into any smart opinions if you bother to try... I just remember encountering a ton of bigoted drunken ranting.
Hypothesis: an implicit secondary reason that so many young people want to be social-media "influencers", is that holding a microphone and having a cameraman following you, creates a magic circle of this kind of "space" around your own person, such that people who ordinarily would never give you the time of day will be perfectly willing to talk to you for a video.
In the US it exists but you have to be a bit more aware of body language and such. Not everyone is as open. But generally communities exist all around you in the US, you may just not be aware of them.*
* This is strictly in the cities. Suburban life is where isolation and loneliness thrive.
The cities and the countryside, actually. In rural areas, you may spend most of your time in your own territory, but when you encounter other people they'll probably stop and chat. (For one, when your cows get out and into your neighbor's field for the 6th time that year, you want to be on good enough terms to be able to go fetch them back...)
Suburbia is where we can have exactly what we think we want, and thereby discover that we're wrong.
I talk to my neighbors in the suburbs, something that has never occurred in denser areas. There's no reason for 'burbs by function and design to be "less friendly" than the countryside.
I wouldn't say they're very rare. Go to literally any town in Wisconsin that's not Madison or Milwaukee and you will find an environment very similar to GP's description of Ireland.
Have you been to Ireland? It might be that they are rare compared to what he experienced, even though you think that it must be similar after reading a description.
There is a bar around the corner from Cheers that actually did feel like the neighborhood "living room" to me. When you see a bar where ages range from a few months to 80+ years, you're on the right track.
I'm not even sure if I've ever went to a bar alone in my whole life, but from my observations it's not very common to talk to strangers at all here in Germany, I guess the best chances are outside in a beer garden and not in a bar or cafe, or if the venue is packed enough that you get someone seated at your table (or vice versa). Then again, if you're out with people you're probably more focused on your group so you don't necessarily notice the strangers connecting, but I still doubt I'd missed it all the time.
Germany definitely tends to be like that - but it makes it all the more interesting when strangers do talk to you. It could also vary by region and the type of bar. I've done my share of loitering around neighborhood bars in different parts of Germany, and it is sometimes surprising how open people can be - once they get a few drinks in them.
Places where people sit at the bar, as opposed to tables, are the best for this, especially if they are in places frequented by solo (e.g. business) travelers.
Bars in hotels, airports and train stations (or onboard trains!) are often the most social places around. I've had many good conversations with Germans at hotel bars in various parts of Germany :)
Actually, that depends on the type of bar. At a Donnelly Group bar, absolutely.
But at the older not-quite-dive bars, often attached to a motel and frequented by truckers, good conversation between strangers can still be had.
Unfortunately, those bars are disappearing rapidly. 25 years ago, I lived across the street from one, and there were another two nearby. Maybe five or six in my neighbourhood. Now there is only one left, and it is struggling to stay open.
I was born in the Americas, and I am an European citizen by descent. Being a dual citizen and getting to know the old country changed my life. Highly recommend it. The Americas are very much a frontier society and people who have lived for over a thousand year together have accumulated much more conviviality skills.
Something I learned from an Irish friend is that the (real) Irish pubs function as a global support network. If you need a job, for example, you can find the local pub and chances are someone can help you out.
We have that a bit in coffee bars but it’s way more subdued than what you describe. Over beers in NL people will pretty much assume you’re an alcoholic / basket case for trying to connect with a random group of strangers.
Holy crap, leave it to Iberian peninsular denizens to turn bars anti-social and freeze out cool. It reminds me of the restaurants celebrating dinner for one and people wearing "child free" as some sort self-righteous identity snob pride badge. Being hostile to "outsiders" seems an obsolete, provincial, and narrow-minded worldview to be challenged at every opportunity. People must start somewhere by chatting with new people or they won't make friends. What the heck values did their friends and families teach them or not?
I empathize with your description of easy socialization, but I remain firmly in the "I don't mean to be rude, but what part of my book and body language makes you think I want to talk to strangers right now" camp.
> I'm there to interact and have the book as something to do in the interim.
That is not a possibility that ever even crossed my mind. If I see someone reading a book, I just assume that they don't want social interaction. I didn't even realize that I was making an assumption until I read these comments.
>I went for a walk while visiting my mother and decided to stop for a quick Guinness while reading my book. I wasn't on the second page when a passing woman stopped to ask me what I was reading. I explained it was in Dutch and we had a whole conversation about her brother working in Amsterdam. I couldn't believe it!
As an Scandinavian I must admit that this sounds less than ideal. When are you going to get time to read your book if people keep interrupting you? (50/50 joke/serious).
If I really didn't want to be interrupted I'd read at the library, a cafe or at home rather than a public house. If I wanted to read with the bustle of people around me then I'd probably opt for the bus station.
Your post makes me want to get off my ass and find my GGparents birth certificates so I can prove I'm "Irish" for citizenship and emigration from the US.
Where is home/your mother in Ireland, if you don't mind my asking? Dublin is probably a different beast in some ways, but when I was on a train from Cork to Dublin, I had expected to read the whole way, but this elderly woman sat across from me and we had a wonderful conversation for the whole trip.
> The best place to drink is the emptiest bar in the city
I don't just visit a bar for drinks alone; socializing is part of the experience as well.
> At home I thought of bars primarily as a place to meet new people. I'd head down about once a week alone, with just my newspaper and a free afternoon, and generally end up chatting with someone about the news until we headed out for dinner together.
Thanks for sharing that. I've added Ireland in my travel bucket list. I hope I'll have a similar experience
So true. I had a similar experience in Germany. I'd say Ireland is small enough that everyone is connected to everyone else in some way, and people are curious about others, and discovering those remote connections. I've found that in many other places, people just don't care and are not interested.
Feels good to just read that there is such a magical place on earth. USA used to be that way but it's quite not the same now. That's it!! I'm moving to Ireland.
I love hotel bars, and not just for the quiet. It is the "liminality" that the author mentions, not just in space and time but also in the social dimension: a place that is neither private nor public, but a bit of both. Places where you can be friends (or at least get drunk) with a total stranger for one evening.
When I am in a big city, alone or with company, I try to hit the bar of my hotel at that specific lull between daytime obligations and the night on the town. I order a Martini to test the proficiency of the bartender and make some smalltalk or eavesdrop on the conversations while I wait for the evening to arrive. There is comfort in these vacant but well-delineated stretches of time, and hotelbars are perfect for that.
Yes, but like the best simple recipes, the skill lies in picking the right two and using them in the right proportion.
Gins and vermouths both vary a lot in flavor, and a martini is a drink that's all about the subtleties of how they interact. If you get an olive or three in your martini, there's also the element of the olive brine. That could be an incidental amount from the surface of the olives, or an amount added beyond that, at which point the drink is properly called a dirty martini.
A martini is the perfect test of a bartender's skill, just as a plain cheese pizza is the perfect test of a pizza maker's skill.
Agree with cheese pizza, and will add plain cheeseburger. But with a martini one normally specifies the ingredients (or at least the base) as the orderer, otherwise it’s just well alcohol. So I would normally say something like “vodka martini” and they would give me whatever is on well with whatever the vermouth is, and I guess olive juice if I specified. Otherwise I’d order a “X Brand vodka/gin martini” and they’d do the same but with the specified brand. So this isn’t really helpful to determine anything about the bartender. Unless you’re telling them to surprise you, but then you’re likely just testing if
their preferences match yours.
Furthermore, the recipe specifies the proportions. Whatever ounces or whatever ingredient. I would argue that them deciding the proportions outside of the recipe is bad.
I think your romanticizing martinis too much and reading too much into them. Martinis are good btw, just saying they’re the most basic drink.
A classic martini has three ingredients, though I find novice cocktail makers often forget the most important: gin, vermouth and ice water. If you've ever made them in bulk you immediately realize that you need to add ~20% ice water before putting the batch into the freezer (since it isn't added in the process of mixing).
The martini may be simple, but it is not easy to make an excellent one. It's a very solid test of a bartender's skill because, unlike many drinks, ingredients alone cannot carry the cocktail. A piña colada for example, is mostly about ingredients (are you using a good coconut cream? fresh pineapple?) For the martini the chilling and dilution need to be just right. This tests the bartender's most important skill: mixing. Proper mixing of the beverage is ultimately what makes a martini.
In addition, I've had a shocking number of awful martinis served to me.
I am very open to being wrong about the ingredients in a martini, so I checked. I can’t find any reference to any ingredient other than the two mentioned, plus maybe a garnish if desired. Ice water is never listed, so it sounds like you’re having nonstandard martinis, which is totally fine but a little unfair to the bartender if it’s some test. I was thinking that some water does make it into the martini as an artifact of the catalyst (ice) used to make it cold, but then you seem to reference actively diluting it with straight iced water. I think we’re probably just referencing different drinks, I am specifically referencing a “classic martini” from the original post.
I get the sense that this is just a hyper specific hobby of yours, so won’t begrudge you being exacting to the standards you’ve created. Just like some people really, really get off on leather shoes or suits or whatever, hobbies are fun.
The ice water is implicit. It comes from shaking or stirring it over ice to chill everything prior to serving. Dilution from this process is important for the balance of most cocktails.
The cold water making it into the drink as a part of dilution is the whole point of using ice and not just chilling the ingredients. ice serves two purposes: to dilute the cocktail (as water) and to chill the drink. both are essential.
if i show up to a bar and you pour me measures of vodka and vermouth in a glass without properly diluting it, i'll send it back and have a beer instead.
martinis are shockingly easy to fuck up. and this conversation is exactly the reason why the martini is a good test of a bartender's capability. being a bartender is more than putting fixed quantities of ingredients in a glass. how do you know when your martini is properly diluted, either by shaking or stirring? a good bartender will know. a bad bartender will not. a terrible bartender won't even realize dilution is crucial.
Once made friends with a local bartender. Hung out at the place a few times chatting and drinking beer. One night I was feeling liberated so I ordered a gin martini. She must have shaken it for 30 or 40 seconds! It was basically flavored ice water, couldn't finish it.
The drink is diluted a bit by the ice in the mixing glass. It does not show up in the recipe but is an essential element. In the book, How’s Your Drink? The author admonishes the reader not to serve knock out drinks that are not sufficiently left in ice long enough for some dilution to occur.
I totally forgot about ghee despite having a tub in the fridge, and using it last time I cooked a steak lol. Good shout. It adds a nice nutty flavour if I recall
But butter is only for finishing, to bring out the garlic and thyme flavours. I cook it with a bit of oil if I finish with butter
Coffee is mostly ingredient however. Good luck doing a good coffee with poorly roasted or stale beans while fresh beans will give you a proper cup using a press even if you do it extremely poorly (in so much as you can even mess up a press).
I think you strongly overestimate the competence of the average barkeep, many are there for the seasonal job or just to fill a gap between jobs. Not that there's anything wrong with either one of those, but it's good to know beforehand so you don't have a drink absolutely butchered. I can't even begin to count the times I've been served a "skinny bitch" that's just vodka and soda water.
I've had so many people tell me that it is unreasonable to ask in an interview "What's the difference between an array and a set?"... Then I ask how they'd feel about reviewing PRs from a person that does not know the difference and they mostly of change their minds about it.
To be fair, it does depend on the question. Yours is fine.
I've also seen things like "Why would you specify the # of elements when initializing an ArrayList in Java?", and you just know the person asking is the guy that sprinkles magic constants all over his code. And gives negative reviews when you don't put random (often relatively small) numbers in yours too.
Instead of hardcoding, you can specify a million configuration variables to be determined at runtime, and shift the responsibility to SRE to draft a deployment plan for that :P
Or test a bartender by ordering a fizzbuzz and see if they're a former software engineer who got fed up with the crunch and left to go work in a bar (something I think all of us have considered at least once).
What sort of response were they looking for with that? "How would you like it - boiled, poached, fried, scrambled or turned into an omelette? Or a meringue maybe?"
GP said a restaurant, not a road-side 'caf'/'diner'. They'd be looking to be given something good, whatever the candidate wants/comes up with/thinks they can do well. e.g. a bad candidate returns literally just a fried egg on a plate, a good candidate returns a devilled egg neatly presented, say.
The restaurant owner is interviewing a chef, not a cook. Part of the chef's job will be to innovate -- new dishes for the menu, small changes to existing dishes when customers ask for it or particular ingredients aren't available, something completely different when a coeliac vegan turns up.
It's weird how different industries work - even if they're both creative ones. If a customer under-specifies what they want, and I just make what I think will wow them rather than what they were thinking of but didn't think to tell me, that's a bad job on my part for not engaging with them and finding out what they actually desired.
Not a customer though, an interviewer who asks you how you'd go about designing the architecture for an IoT-controlled fleet of egg-cracking robots.
You might talk in great detail about SoA design, and the interviewer might be hiring for a monolith, but still respect the acumen, you could still be a great fit.
It doesn't mean the chef's only going to be cooking tasting menus any more than it means the engineer has carte blanche over greenfield design or to rewrite an existing project.
off-topic, but since we're talking about chefs, please take a second to remember Frederic Forrest, who died yesterday. Among numerous roles, he played 'Chef' in Apocalypse Now, an amazing, iconic, memorable performance. "Never get out of the boat."
Eggs are versatile and require special handling, so egg dishes are good for showing both creativity and technique. There's a lot to pay attention to: cracking eggs, picking cooking vessels and utensils, seasoning, plating, texture, how fast you move, etc.
Efficiently making an egg dish that can be served to customers would be a pass. The standards depend on the restaurant and the chef that does the interview.
Eggs are also extremely easy to overcook (I'm far from a professional, I think around ~70C/160F, and the temperature tolerance band is quite small), so there's a lot of techniques in controlling the temperature.
My imagined reply - as I am not a chef: "What do you think I am? A hen? If you want an egg dish, ask for it. An extra word won't hurt you. I can't work with tight people, I'm outta here."
Tangential, but most bartenders would say a Daiquiri is how you test another bartender. I think I first read that in "Regarding Cocktails" but a quick search does bring interesting confirmation https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=bartender%20test%20dai...
The daiquiri is an interesting one because it will weed out easily 90% of bartenders without even receiving a drink. The number of times I have been told "sorry, we don't have a blender" is a source of great amusement to me.
I recently ordered a daiquiri from someone who didn't know how to make one. I received a delicious drink served in a coupe, but the weird thing was that it had a large spherical ice cube in it as well.
It would take a true maestro to make a damn good martini but even the basic AF store bought pina colada mix tastes good.
Getting into tiki cocktails, I’ve never had a bad one because it is literally impossible to mess up fruit juices and large quantities of rum and other spirits.
I don’t know — I suppose I’d agree that even a “bad” rum-and-fruit-juice cocktail is almost always still drinkable. But there’s a wide difference between a Mai Tai or a Zombie made at a tiki bar following the classic recipes and one made at an Applebee’s. :)
My standard test cocktails are a Vieux Carré, and a Sidecar, but i ask for it to be less sour than usual. The former is moderately complicated, and tastes wrong if it's not bang on. The latter is simple, but tests their ability to deviate from a script.
(also, standard-ratio Sidecars are an abomination)
Negronis only have three ingredients but make for a good bartender test for exactly this reason. a) do they even know what it is? b) do they know the 3 ingredients? c) Do they know the correct proportions?
It's not like a martini which is a term that can mean just about anything from person to person.
Agreed! I love negronis, but have found that they can easily be screwed up. I've had more barely-adequate negronis than ones that were good or even worth drinking, but they're my favorite cocktail when they're good. They're just uncommon enough that many bartenders forget exactly what's in them.
One of the categories in which he bins bartenders is "they don't know what it is, but don't try to wing it & when I tell them they make it correctly" and he views that as an acceptable outcome as well. If they can manage to make 1/3 each of 3 ingredients it means he can trust them to follow instructions on other drinks as well.
In most bars a frozen Pina colada also only has two ingredients: rum and Pina colada mix.
A martini is deceptive in its simplicity. The lack of flavorful ingredients like lime juice or coconut milk means technique and balance are more important, not less.
A good martini takes skill and good ingredients to make. The gin and the vermouth choice make a difference, as does the way they are mixed and how they are garnished.
One thing I've not seen mentioned in other comments is the importance of the lemon twist. It's not just a visual garnish, when the oils are expressed onto the finished drink it adds a big layer of aroma which is an important part of the drink.
A drop of bitters can make a HUGE difference. There's also many many variations in style and substance. (I prefer a Vesper that's actually close to the original recipe with Tempus Fugit Kina l'Aero d'Or or an upside down Martini with a vermouth as the main and gin as the additive)
I can only imagine this is the actual preference of two types of people:
1) Those who've never had a good martini made with high-quality, fresh vermouth, carefully chosen to complement the gin (or vodka, for that variant) being used.
2) Folks who've adopted the preference not due to genuinely preferring straight gin to an actually good martini, but because they've decided it's somehow more hard-core, classy, or old-school, due to Churchill et al. (I wouldn't say it's any of those, but to each their own—if anything, the Churchill thing reads to me more as an alcoholism joke than serious advice)
I would agree, however, that given a decent-or-better gin and cheap vermouth that was opened six months ago and has been sitting in the back of a cabinet since, I'd rather have the gin neat or over ice. Both primary ingredients need to be good to make a tasty martini—otherwise, sure, why bother, and yeah, the vast majority of bars probably don't go through enough good vermouth to justify stocking it at all (let alone multiple kinds to pair thoughtfully with various gins) so many places just can't make a good martini. I certainly wouldn't judge a bartender's skill at anything but a very-fancy bar based on how good a martini they make. It's not a drink with an acceptable cheap version, IMO—there's nothing for the cheapness to hide behind.
I'm in category 1 personally. I'll drink straight vermouth (if it's good) as an aperitif. But so many people seem to agree with Churchill I find it funny.
Or just don’t test bartenders? They have bosses who do that for you. Did you feel entitled to call up Google and start interviewing their engineers the first time you used the search engine?
Some of my favorite social experiences occurred at hotel bars near airports. An example was a time I struck up a conversation with a woman who turned out to be a flight attendant, and we ended up eating dinner together and talking for hours. Even gave me her phone number! It's one of those things that's only likely to happen in another setting such as a noisy sports bar. Being able to hear each other was really important; most bars where I live have bad acoustics and music blaring, which I think suppresses random conversations.
My other favorite type of bar is those at fancy restaurants. They are usually quieter, have better clientele, and are often a de facto loophole for eating dinner without a reservation.
I was out of town once with my wife, and we were in a hotel. We went down to the lounge, and it was a nice, serene space, with quiet little seating spaces. It had a great atmosphere and snack mix.
Later, I had to go back to the same area and, having had a good experience, I picked the same hotel hoping to use the lounge again.
But, alas, the hotel was overrun by a High School Jazz Band event.
I just recall this from when I used to enjoy alcohol - ordering a martini to test proficiency of bartender, and then getting charged for a full, disgusting entire shot of vermouth in there because the bartenders get in TROUBLE for not metering out shots in full, across many bars. Like there's just no recourse for them to add a little capful because there's graduated marks on the bottles and their boss is being overbearing, across many different bars this being the policy.
“A perfect martini should be made by filling a glass with gin, then waving it in the general direction of Italy.”
I don’t drink but it’s a nice quote by Noel Coward
For me that is so for a bigger personal reason (along with the big enough of reason of not being noisy) - because these places almost never have even a whiff of cigarette smoke and I love that. A place where you can drink without having to worry about someone lighting up. Especially the ones which are connected to the lobby - awesome, that means no one is allowed to ever smoke in there.
I was a bartender when I was young and so please cut the bullshit. Bartenders see this kind of shit constantly and it’s usually a tell that you have low confidence and a really bad personality. Confident people who come from money don’t care to flaunt like this. Whoop dee shit, you are extremely opinionated about martinis. You might think it makes you sound like a big shot but the opposite is true.
I live in New York, but I rarely go to hotel bars here because, while frequently comfortable, they are outrageously expensive. On my most recent visit this spring I paid $24 for a single very mediocre cocktail.
Hotel bars are in a liminal space where some of the best bars in the world are in big city hotels, but also some of the most disappointing bars. Hard to know without searching in advanced. I'm not sure I would just walk in when the prices are steep across the board for hotel bars.
The best part of an empty bar to me isn’t just the lack of noise, but total freedom to drink slowly. Delays the effects of inebriation and there is more time to relax and contemplate all your choices in life.
Also depends on whether there's an end to it. Personally, my problem isn't the choices - it's that when I start to contemplate them, I end up thinking in circles within circles, forever looping with no change in sight.
Thought loops and general anxiety over making decisions is quite common for me. Having an alcoholic drink generally calms my mind for a bit, but I don't like to overdo it and think of it as a sort of "medication." I do enjoy being able to let my guard down a bit and sit with a clear head, though.
Trying to surface those ones is often how I got into the loops. As in, the uncomfortable thoughts were found, dealt with, and my mental process continued to run in circles, like in some videogames in which you have homing missiles fly in a circular "holding pattern" after losing target lock, until they reacquire or run out of fuel.
I've never worked in a bar or restaurant. I used to go and enjoy my food or drinks at my own pace and whenever the server would ask "Can I get you anything" I would respond "No" if I didn't need anything.
A new friend that had worked in restaurants told me that the server is constantly asking because it is the polite way of saying "Order something or leave because you are wasting the revenue making potential of this table by just sitting here."
Now I tend to watch the line waiting to get a table if we are finished and just talking. I would rather sit and talk but am I depriving the owner and staff of money? Maybe? Is that my problem? I don't know.
Im not sure that makes me want to drink faster. If I ordered a pint and an appetizer then I am going to sit and read the news while I consume them. If you want any more of my money, or wish for me to ever return, you will not get pushy with me.
There's a fine line between good service and "necessary" service. A good server is right there anticipating your needs and that "Can I get you anything?" is "What's next?" carefully timed to be at hand just as you finish the current drink so there's no lag between drinks. That server is doing a complex calculus of your drinking speed and the current bar's speed and trying to ask at the right moment that they can "just about read your mind", collect your next order, finish it in the right order at the bar and deliver just moments before you need it.
The "necessary" service is indeed hopefully trying to do all of that, but also has to add in the calculus of the business needs and try to send polite messages when they think turning over the table entirely is better for business. Keep in mind, that isn't always the case: a higher tip on a few more (higher margin) drinks is just as useful to the business sometimes as the turnover time just to end up with someone ordering just lower margin foods and giving a bad tip.
I have found that if you are curious if you are getting the "good" service or the "necessary" service in that moment, it's easiest and best to ask. They may feel too polite to say something unprompted, but they are almost always happy to answer direct questions if you are kind about how you ask (and if you can give an apology if you find out that you have taken too much time). I've found that asking also sometimes opens up interesting responses. Again, keep in mind that a good tip on a "slow drinker" can always be a "bird in the hand" that a server doesn't want to waste on a possible "two in the bush". I've been invited/welcomed to take a conversation (or my book in cases of dining alone) to a bar or a lower revenue table before (maybe one with less of "a view" or a smaller size). I've been asked to tip out a server switching shifts, with no need to close the full tab, and then treated generously by the incoming server for saving them end of shift math and making their coworker happy. I've had appetizers or drinks entirely comped just because I was nice enough to ask if the server needed the table, apologized for the inconvenience to them, and the server hoped I'd return during a less busy shift.
I don't think it is my problem to pick up "hints" when servers are being too polite, and I'm not the one paid to do the calculus of what's best for the customer (me) versus what is best for the business. I try my best to present as the best "bird in the hand" that I can so that a server is never resentful of me taking up their service at the expense of whatever line may or may not exist. The line is of no concern to me. One of the ways to present as a good "bird in the hand" is to ask if I'm taking too much time, drinking too slow, and then no matter the response I get back, I know that I should be appreciative of whatever the response. Sometimes the response is truly "you are fine, take your time" (which is perhaps the one hardest skill, because of course you will get that a lot when servers think they need to be polite, versus when that is the real answer), and when that it the real answer I always deeply appreciate that. It can be nice to feel recognized that you are a good customer and the server knows they have a good "bird in the hand" and doesn't want to waste the opportunity. I always try to appreciate that (especially when you know there is a line of envious birds in the bush).
(ETA: I nearly forgot possibly the best advice I've picked up over the years: depending on the type of restaurant, the best person to ask what the expected turnover time for a table is almost always the Host. They get tipped indirectly from the servers so they have even fewer reasons to give polite answers rather than real answers. It's directly their job to manage the balancing act of turnovers and lines/waiting lists/reservations. Often you can ask before you are even seated and get a great approximation so that you can appropriately pace yourself. I've also asked them sometimes, when I arrived during a slow time on the sort of night where I expect that to change abruptly, to let me know if anything changes and they find a need to turnover the table "soon" and have won brownie points with restaurants that way as well. You also get a great feel for a restaurant asking the Host questions about expected turnover. You'd sometimes be surprised how many restaurants have expected turnovers closer to four hours than the one and a half most people think of a "meal time", what that says about how they try to pace the meals themselves, including after dinner drinks, and sometimes what that says about their margins and business model. A good restaurant may not need fast turnovers, it may be more than happy with slow ones.)
I love the way you approach this. you both get to stay as long as you want and build good will with the staff. by being polite, you're making everyone's life easier
When you're with friends/acquaintances, you'd have to catch up with the average speed of the group. Otherwise you might not be able to enjoy all the series of things that get ordered. Probably what the commenter meant.
Off topic rant but meanwhile I have windows programs from the 90's still running fine on my machine. It baffles me how anti-consumer modern phones are.
Further offtopic, but I have Windows programs from the 90s running fine on my machine, but only because they're running on Wine on my Linux box. Windows itself can no longer run them, even in compatibility mode.
If you are in NYC and want to try a quiet bar I recommend The Burp Castle on East 7th in the East Village. There is a sign that says "no loud talking allowed, whispering only". And people will actually shush you if you talk to loud. Amazing rotating collection of fine beers too.
If that is true where you live, you are lucky. All across the US, this is not true - and while there used to be a caliber of restaurant that would not have a sports game on a tv, that has changed significantly.
Hotel lobbies, especially those like Ace, CitizenM, Public, and Moxy, are my favorite public spaces. You could practically spend the entire day there. Start with a coffee and end it with a nightcap.
There’s almost always a place to sit. You could show up with your laptop and work, and not get the kind of side eye you’d get from coffee shops. Or you could show up with a friend or a date and actually hear yourself think. You can make conversations with strangers. You don’t feel obligated to buy a drink every hour. And you don’t look like a loser if you’re drinking solo.
And the bartenders know what they’re doing. I’d take it over the cramped hipster Williamsburg speakeasy with a 1 month in advance reservation requirement.
> You could show up with your laptop and work, and not get the kind of side eye you’d get from coffee shops.
Conversely, as someone who wants to actually sample the offerings at different coffee shops, I find it incredibly annoying that there's never any space to just sit and drink coffee. Every space is overtaken by laptop users parked for hours. Me, I'd like to try a nice pourover, and sit and savor it for half hour or so before heading on my day. Instead, my only option is a to go cup, and I'm damned if I'm spending that much for drinking out a paper cup standing outside.
I always wondered if bars and clubs actually get inspected to check the dB level emitted by their sound systems, some places seem way too loud to be safe for people's hearing.
I'm not sure how common it is in other places, but in Belgium most of the bars and clubs have a visible screen which always shows the current decibels in the venue. Some of them have have free earplugs to take and concert venue have dispensers with concert specific earplug to buy.
Having a display in the sound booth is mandatory in France. Because the sound booth is usually in the middle of the stage, it is usually visible to the public too.
The maximum level is 102dB over 15 minutes. When I look at the screen in a loud venue (EDM, rock concert, ...), it is usually around 100dB, which more than justifies earplugs.
Free foam earplugs are common too, and they also sell better sounding earplugs in larger events. Personally, I bought custom molded earplugs, the type used by musicians. Expensive (~$200) but in my case 100% worth it: the others I tried tend to fall off, seal poorly, or be uncomfortable, and in the case of the cheapest ones (like the ones you get for free), completely muddle the sound.
I'm from the US, but have been very happy with etymotic brand earplugs. They have inexpensive ($15 USD) standard designs as well as custom-fit. Either sound much better than foam plugs.
I have the Interson Protac Pianissimo, with 25dB filters, I had them made at my local audiologist (Amplifon) a few years ago.
I am very satisfied, and I never suffered any kind of hearing loss or tinnitus after wearing these and while not perfectly linear, I could fully enjoy the music. If anything 25dB is a bit too much for "reasonably" loud events and I am tempted to buy extra filters with less attenuation for these events.
Almost all bars and clubs are too loud by a large degree. I started keeping track of decibel levels when I developed tinnitus, and at minimum a pub with a live band is going to be 20-30db too loud.
For this reason I always have a pair of ear plugs of some kind. Loop Experience, or even just regular foam (depending on the noise level and how well dressed I’m expected to be).
It's usually because they play music and only have like 1 crappy speaker, so they have to blast sound out of that speaker, and anyone nearby has to scream to have a conversation over the speaker, and then anyone near that group has to scream even louder, and before you know it - everyone is screaming and you can't even hear the music.
You can buy custom fit earplugs with changeable sound filters. There are lines specifically for bars, clubs and festivals for the staff to hear patrons speech but drown out the noise.
A bit over a decade ago, I met the founder of a company called EarPeace [1] that makes volume-reducing earplugs for music festivals in a bar in a suburb of Guangzhou. He gave me his pitch about the irony of how people who love music end up damaging their hearing by going to loud music festivals, concerts and bars. I've always been sensitive to keeping the volume of headphones low, but had never thought about the danger of loud environmental noise in entertainment venues. I guess I always assumed that making your best customers slowly deaf surely wouldn't be very good for business. I mean, they're already poisoning our livers and making us hungover, they certainly wouldn't also make us deaf, would they?
Ever since then, I've carried a set of EarPeace around on my keychain and used them religiously in loud environments. When I owned a Vespa for ~5 years in Hong Kong, I'd always put them in before driving....motorcycle forums are filled with bikers who have destroyed their hearing from wind noise.
Once apple watch added the ability to warn us about loud noises, level and time allowing me to quantify the potential damaging sound levels I'd been avoiding all of these years, it was pretty shocking. Bars and club can easily come in over 100 dbs and 110 db isn't really that rare.
I highly recommend some sort of volume reducing earplugs - not only do you protect your hearing, but it also makes going out much more comfortable. By reducing the volume of instead of blocking the sounds, you can make out more detail of the music and what other people are saying.
Edit: on the same note, does anyone know if earbuds with active noise cancelation like airpods pro offer similar hearing protection benefits?
Nice story and glad you found a solution you like to use. I'm all for promoting earplug use in daily life. Hearing loss isn't even the worst outcome from sound exposure - tinnitus/ear ringing (and worse still) hyperacousis (painful response to sound) can occur without warning in loud environments. It's shockingly easy to lose one's ability to "hear" silence, and it's often taken for granted until it's gone.
On the plus side, I don't spend lots of money on silent PC components. :)
> doctors CANNOT DO ANYTHING about it if you screw it up.
There is a window of time of a few days after being exposed to loud noises where actions can be taken to reduce the likelihood of long term damage. So actually if you screw it up please go see a doctor immediately.
Some more good news: I had severe tinnitus at some point (some years ago) and bit by bit it faded. So long term you may have some recovery (or not... but at least for me it got a bit better).
I've stumbled upon a so called "acoustic neuromodulation" treatment option, which in theory rewires the faulty brain circuitry by only using sound (non invasive), but not sure where can I actually enroll in this.
I find it comes and goes with things like stress and tiredness.
Sometimes I'm very aware of it and others much less so.
The best amateur advice I can give is to try to think of it like the sound of the sea or white noise in the background. It's not, obviously, but I like the sound of sea so it makes it more ...bearable.
“I guess I always assumed that making your best customers slowly deaf surely wouldn't be very good for business. I mean, they're already poisoning our livers and making us hungover, they certainly wouldn't also make us deaf, would they?”
It took me only one gig with an earplugs to start using them religiously, carrying them with me at all times on my keychain, same way you mentioned.
Once you put them out during a gig and hear just how LOUD the place is, is really a strange sensation.
I think it is fairly common now, at least with those who go to concerts regularly. Now I see most of the people wearing them, and some places even offer free ones on the bar counter.
I would recommend getting good plugs though. Bad cheap plugs make you hear nothing.
On the other hand, I have some Senner Earplugs. Those are amazing - they take away a lot of sound pressure at lower freqencies, but let most higher frequencies through. This way, you can still hear toplines, vocals, melodies clearly, but the bass + drums don't kill your ears.
Yep, I agree. That's another thing that is fascinating at first when you start using earplugs. You actually hear the instruments better, almost as an isolated track
> I guess I always assumed that making your best customers slowly deaf surely wouldn't be very good for business.
Many venues with loud music caters to young people. Destroying their hearing is not a big problem, because they'll soon get tired/bored of your place (or the scene in general) and a new generation of young customers will come to replace them.
Starting to use ear plugs allowed me to actually enjoy concerts. Before I always stood awkwardly in the back, or if not, be worried about my ears the whole time.
With earplugs I can be at the front, feel the base and not worry. Worth it for that experience alone.
I bought the plugs recommended by Tom Scott in [1], and they're fine for the purpose. Long term getting ones that are fitted to my ears is on my list.
I also didn't like concerts for 20 years because they were way too loud. I would take cheap foam earplugs for mowing the lawn and all you could hear/feel was bass.
Then I got some Etymotic high fidelity earplugs and concerts are enjoyable. They reduce all frequencies equally so the music still sounds good.
I've now for about 20 years always have two pair of ear plugs on my person. I use the 3M corded ones. $7 for three pairs. One pair for me and one pair was for my daughter. She's off on her own now but having another pair for a friend is a good thing. I am surprised by the number of venues where I feel the need to wear them. One is my gym. Reading this did inspire me to go shopping for another pair. I just ordered the Loop. I like that they don't stick out.
> does anyone know if earbuds with active noise cancelation like airpods pro offer similar hearing protection benefits
Yes, ANC headphones do protect your hearing, but they offer weaker protection than specialized heavy-duty equipment like you'd find on a construction site or a shooting range. When using your AirPods Pro your Apple Watch will even factor that in its noise measurements and show you the original noise level and the one that your ears are actually subject to thanks to ANC. For example if I sit right next to a loud vacuum cleaner my Watch says 85 dB, but when I enable ANC on my AirPods Pro 2 it drops down to 62 dB.
One issue is than ANC can't predict and sometimes react fast enough to sudden loud noises, so if an engine backfires next to you, your ANC headphones will take a few miliseconds to catch up and will allow the original sound (minus their inherent (passive) sound isolation) to reach your ear.
> One issue is than ANC can't predict and sometimes react fast enough to sudden loud noises, so if an engine backfires next to you, your ANC headphones will take a few miliseconds to catch up and will allow the original sound (minus their inherent (passive) sound isolation) to reach your ear.
Are you sure of this? I thought audio computation was fast enough for avoiding this issue.
> One issue is than ANC can't predict and sometimes react fast enough to sudden loud noises, so if an engine backfires next to you, your ANC headphones will take a few miliseconds to catch up and will allow the original sound (minus their inherent (passive) sound isolation) to reach your ear.
Ön the other hand, isn't the time spent exposed to loud sounds what counts for hearing damage? I.e. one should be less worried precisely about the sorts of things ANC is bad at dealing with?
It depends on noise level. You’re right though generally. One can safely listen to 85dB for 8 hours before hearing loss starts. Up that to 91dB and you have just two hours. 97dB quarters it again and one can be exposed to only 30 mins. But once one gets to loud sounds like sirens, gunshots, firecrackers in the 120-150dB range onset of permanent hearing loss can be instant.
I imagine it would matter more for more dangerous noise levels and environments, like a shooting range, where even a single shot fired without protection can cause damage, and while some of the better ANC headphones would be able to noticeably suppress a different, sustained, noise of similar intensity, they wouldn't be able to protect you against gunshots.
I had to disable the Apple Watch high decibel alerts feature because it was triggering way too often: at train stations, when taking the subway, walking in the city center, any type of construction work, etc. Before that point I didn’t realize how crazy loud cities are, somehow my brain just dealt with it, and now I feel I cannot unsee it.
Not all cities are like this, but when I go to the USA I am always shocked by how insanely loud the major cities are. New York being the worst, but Philly and LA aren't significantly far away.
Germany also seems to have this problem, at least in Munich, where there are 6 lane roads in the middle of the city and no sound isolation at all for construction.
I think London for me is too noisy, but it's a far cry from New York which felt like an assault on my ears the entire time I was there; such that when I returned to London I felt bad for complaining about it.
Worth always remembering (and a trip to many major European cities will confirm): it’s not cities that are loud, but cars.
Of course trains are pretty bad too but you don’t tend to be surrounded by trains all day every day, even in NYC and especially in Philly, DC, LA, Seattle, Boston, Phoenix, Houston, Vegas, etc, all of which are extremely loud.
Why would one ever choose to own a motorcycle in a place like Hong Kong with its utter absence of places to ride and excellent round the clock public transport system? Is it the fun of waiting in 100 degree weather under hot air vents of bus and private car air conditioners? Unless one works in delivery gig economy, there just don’t seem to be any good reasons.
Thankfully there are fewer motorcycles here than in many Asian countries (Taiwan!), but sadly they still exist and in this climate ear infections from constantly wearing earplugs or headphones with ANC are easy to get and not fun.
Piggybacking on this top comment to retract the parent post.
ANC has a many dodgy edge cases that can go wrong, but I've done some more reading on it and if acoustics PhDs say it's very safe I'll just have to take it at face value until more data exists.
Would you mind explaining this further? Since sound is literally pressure waves, I don't understand how reducing sound can still leave "sound pressure".
ANC works by detecting the outside noise, deriving how these noises reach you ear and then play the antiwave so that in cancels out. The issue is that the canceling out part only works on the receiving end so there is still pressure on the eardrum even if you don't hear it.
I still think that ANC is good for the ears by reducing the needed volume in every day situations. And it also helps that most ANC headphones are designed in a way that also passively isolates the outside world to reduce the burden on the ANC and as a side effect also on your ears.
> pressure on the eardrum even if you don't hear it
Hearing is literally "pressure [changes] on the eardrum". Unless it's outside the frequency range of our hearing, if there's waves hitting your eardrum, you hear them.
So either you're not expressing yourself clearly enough our you've seriously misunderstood how sound works.
But why would there be elevated pressure? Headphones can't pump air into your ear, they can only make it wiggle back and forth. ANC headphones use the same speaker that normally plays your music and just mix the noise-cancelling sound into your music, nothing else. When you aren't playing any music, outside noise makes the air wiggle back and forth and the membrane of the speaker makes the air wiggle back and forth in the opposite phase. These movements destructively interfere, resulting in the air staying still.
BTW where in the video do they mention elevated pressure?
I see this is downvoted and people are asking for an explanation, and I don't have any backing for this either, but I'll share my experience. I have an "issue" with my left ear that makes it feel muffled, and distorted, and painful at loud noises. I have been to a few doctors but they weren't able to diagnose it, need to get it checked at a better doctor I guess.
I can definitely feel my issue get exacerbated with ANC even when I am not playing any music or playing music at low volume (have tried several devices including airpods where my issue is the worst, probably because their ANC is the best). So there is definitely something going on with ANC such that even when I have it on with extremely low volume music, it triggers my issue. -- Even when at the same "perceived volume" of non-ANC sounds the issue doesn't get triggered.
So much so that I do not use ANC. The issue gets triggered within seconds of when I start using it. So instead I just play music on very very low sound on my wireless earphones.
I don't why it happens with ANC, would love to know.
I just have a hard time with crowded places in general, so I like this idea. However my partner would tell you that our house is the best bar in town. I can’t agree or disagree because I tend that bar myself so I’m biased.
Totally relate. Aged about 30 I lost almost all hearing on one side due to an ear infection. I now find noisy places very disorientating, to the point sometimes that I feel physically unwell.
I have totally normal hearing but I also crave these kind of places. I don’t know why. There’s just something about having to scream at someone to be heard that I find vomit worthy. Even to the point that when coworkers go to a bar that is a yeller I simply and literally just turn right back around and walk out now.
The noise of modern life is a significant source of stress which is proven to cause serious diseases like heart diseases, diabetes and chronic ilnesses. You can research this further. I’m also avoiding sound consciously after learning these, and I know now that the sense of stress I experience in city center, malls etc. is mostly due to noise. Though crowds and big objects moving at very high speeds very near to you (cars) are also stress-inducing imho. Your subconscious is just warning you that this life with this much sound isn’t healthy at all.
Same. I hate loud bars. I'm there to enjoy my drink and chat with my friends, not experience sensory overload. I have metal concerts for when I want a lot of noise.
And that's just fine. Too many people make themselves go to places like that to be "in", even though it goes against what they want or what's best for them. Same with e.g. open offices.
But others thrive in environments, and that's fine too. TL;DR, to each their own, but nobody should force the one onto the other, or themselves. I mean yeah, on occasion, exception, compromise, have to have been there to know, that kinda thing.
Yeah this made me wistful. I’d fly back to DC now for a few hours in the bar at the Hyatt. The lady there knew how to pour a measure of Scotch.
There’s something about appreciating a space for what it just is that you recognise as you get older. Not for appreciating the trendy, or the popular, but just for noticing a place, the characters, the shape. A good hotel bar has that in spades.
I like going to a brewery in Ecuador in the morning or mid-day. Most Ecuadorians eat late and party even later so I usually have the whole place to myself. I usually sit inside because the ambiance is better and the noise level is lower. Also, you can avoid some of the smoke by sitting inside.
Reading through the comments, nobody has mentioned it, but I'm curious... why don't people just drink at home? It's way cheaper, less of a risk to get into a fight, no travel time to bed etc?
I get clubbing. You can't really replicate the dance floor and music at home. But a bar?
1) Change of scenery: Especially since I started working from home, I often need an excuse to "go touch grass".
2) Human interaction: At the very least, there's going to be a bartender, and most of the time at least one other person sitting at the bar. Not interacting with other humans face-to-face often enough leads to madness.
3) Variety: I don't stock every beer, liquor, and cocktail ingredient known to man at home (despite my best efforts).
And frankly, that "less risk of getting in a fight" comment is probably the biggest one. Not because I'm particularly rowdy, but because it's indicative of a larger theme: at home, drinking alone, I know exactly what's going to happen. I'm going to have 2 or 4 pretty good drinks, watch some streaming shows, maybe play some videogames, and go to sleep. A bar has the allure of entropy. Interesting things might happen. I might see a fight, I might talk to someone with an interesting story, I might taste something I've never tasted before. The lack of predictability is a selling point unto itself.
On the topic of the general appeal of a public watering hole, I’ll direct you to a passage from the intro music of the seminal sitcom Cheers (which itself touches on your very question):
Could it be coming from within if you get yourself in bar fights often enough to make it a consideration for not going out?
I've had my fair share of bars and clubs. Never once got remotely close to be involved in a fight, it's not something that even crosses my mind as a potential issue.
It's much more preferable to drink alone at home than to go out to a bar. I understand people who wax enthusiastic about bars will disagree, and are far more likely to read the headline and post a comment here.
I'd rather pre-screen the people online first before I meet them, or meet people at special interest clubs or events. I'm way more likely to meet someone I have something in common with that way than meeting random people at a bar.
Not to mention that at a bar I'm much more likely to meet the kind of people that hang out in bars, which from my experience haven't been the kind of people I like.
You select people by picking the right bar. You probably won't get terribly interesting conversation in the Slug & Lettuce on the high street (although you might). I have had interesting conversations in little bars in the arty (or at least, pretentious twentysomething) part of town, or well-concealed specifically cocktailish bars in Paris.
Meeting people that you have very little in common with over a drink is one of the pros of these sort of low-stakes interactions. Sometimes it’s just brief pleasantries exchanged, sometimes an opportunity to learn something new, other times a new friend made for the evening or beyond.
It's a bit more social - the local bars I go to I know loads of people who go, I know the bar staff. There's little-to-no risk of fighting and this is true for most bars here unless you really wanted to find trouble (i.e. you sought out a football bar and went in loudly declaring your love for Sparta Prague and calling the local team shite). Re travel time, where I go is usually about 10 minutes walk home ... but if I have my dog then this is no different from drinking at home since before bed I need to take him ~10 minutes around the block anyway after I was done for the night.
What's the range of drinks that you carry at home? How many cocktails do you know how to make? Do you have the ingredients to make them? What happens when a drunk guest spills his beer on your carpet? What happens when some acquaintances bring acquaintances that bring acquaintances? How do you continue the party? Does everyone have to drive to the club? Isn't everyone drunk already?
I see plenty of reasons without even going to the fact that it's just about going out.
I get your point if your idea of going to the bar is to have a pint with your wife on Sunday afternoon, which is a valid idea of going to the bar. But it's just not the case for a lot of people, and not the topic of the article.
Bars often vary ingredients that I wouldn’t purchase for myself and therefore allows me to try a variety of drinks that I can’t make by myself. Also, alcohol and socializing is a positive feedback loop for many people.
Drinking tend to make a lot of people more sociable, and enjoy talking to others. By going to a bar where others are also drinking you have a place where there will be similarly extra-sociable-from-drinking people to interact with. If you’ve ever had a friend or family member who likes to call and talk whenever they are drinking and you are sober and find the conversation trying - you can understand the draw a social atmosphere where (most) everyone will be drinking.
EDIT: the parent suggested that alcohol and an untrained therapist is cheaper. I posted something that is cheaper and healthier since it wont ruin your liver. Not to mention, chatgpt is actually trained on CBT.
As someone with mid range hearing loss in my 30's, even a moderately loud restaurant becomes annoying when trying hold a conversation with someone. Ive never been able to grasp how people can converse in night clubs.
I was once at a rave in Estonia that had the loudest sound system I have ever seen in my life, speakers stacked to the very high ceiling of an old Soviet factory. I was wearing earplugs, but it was still uncomfortably loud and I could feel my pants vibrate with the bass.
There was one guy, high as a kite, who was literally hugging the speakers. I hope he enjoyed the rave because I'm pretty sure he got tinnitus as a souvenir.
Sounds exactly like how rave / techno events used to be here in Bulgaria.
Super loud bass can make you horny. I still remember two dudes playing with each other's nipples standing right next to the huge, double stacked, two-speaker Cerwin Vega bass boxes. This was 25 years ago.
Yeah, I think I wasn't clear. I wasn't referring to the _existence_ of loud bars. The "problem" is that we have few-to-none of the quiet bars. The drinking/third-place culture in America is simply worse than the rest of the world (outside of NYC).
I think there’s a fair amount of truth to this. Really the only reasonably quiet bars in America that I’ve been to (which is a decent amount, I happen to like both traveling and drinking) are almost always either a hotel bar like the OP references or one of the dimly lit hipster speakeasy style places.
Hotels have the downside of often being boring and expensive, and coincidentally the hipster speakeasy bars also often have the same downside. At least you’ll often get a bit more effort into your $25 cocktail when some bearded mixologist is shaking it up at the hipster joint.
UK cities definitely have this problem. We also have local pubs which don't play music and have lots of soft furnishings, but go into any pub or bar in the city on a Thursday evening and you will have to shout. Go anywhere "trendy" and it's got loud music, reflective ceilings and you can barely hear anything.
Terrible? It's amazing. Often warm and welcoming, a murmur of conversation and you're not having to raise your voice to speak to your friends or family. You don't go to the quiet ones for a raging night out, but for catchups with friends or a dinner with family. Really it's a delight.
That's probably true of pubs, but if you want to go somewhere with a good cocktail or whisky selection, for example, it's very hard to find somewhere with low volume music.
It depends where you are. In Scotland it's hard to find a pub without a good whisky selection and in any UK city a pub will be able to make a wide range of cocktails. Having said that, some play loud music and some don't.
A pub may have the ingredients to make a wide range of cocktails, but most of them won't have staff who actually know how to do so well. If you're lucky someone will have had some training in making cocktails and be able to make something passable. If you're unlucky they'll grab the bottle of premix from under the bar.
Cocktail bars are a distinct thing, and have staff who actually know what they're doing, unfortunately they usually have exactly the same problems described in this article of being uncomfortably loud.
Well that's not really a focus of British culture traditionally. The main people who want to drink cocktails are people going out clubbing. The main traditional drinking places (pubs) serve mainly beer, cider, and wine. The situation is similar in Germany. That said, in the UK with the "plastic pubs" it is now way more common to be able to get (bad) cocktails anywhere.
Though one experience I will never forget going into a fancy bar that opened in my mum's small town and asking for a martini and the bartender looking confused at me and serving me a shot of pure unchilled vermouth in a near-empty tall glass...
We have both kinds, for different occasions and audiences. Many pubs have no music, or quiet background, and are decent places for conversation. Most bars have pretty loud music as part of the atmosphere. There's a relatively fuzzy line at the loud and late opening end between bars and clubs, for which music and dancing is the whole point.
Bars in the city of of London, in the hours after work, are far from quiet.
A suburban or village pub may be different. You get to know which one in your local area suits your needs. e.g. I could point you to a local pub with craft beer and a quiet cosy corner, and suggest to avoid the one with the loud sports TV always on.
In the actual City area, with the tall buildings, the quiet kind will be nearly impossible to find at 6pm on a Friday.
That's absolutely not the case for the most part, depending on the bar and the time. Go out to a city centre on an evening, especially Friday or Saturday. Most bars and pubs will be busy, noisy, and definitely playing music.
There are absolutely quieter pubs available, but you need to know where to go.
I've certainly experienced it in UK cities (Edinburgh, Glasgow, London…). Agreed that rural/small-town pubs and 'old man pubs' tend to be pleasant and at a reasonable volume.
A quiet local pub is self-evidently not usually noisy other than live music nights where amplifier volume seems to always be 10, but I have had my ears blasted hallway to meeting each other by music in all of the last 3 UK venues I've been to (two urban pubs and a rooftop bar), and all the urban pubs near an old workplace were almost unbearable. In fairness, the volume in those was mostly due to being absolutely rammed to the gunwhales, I only specifically remember one of them adding music to the din.
And without the TV. Seriously, I can't stand pubs/bars, my GF looks me like I was an alien.
I prefer cafeterias allegedly targeted to " middle aged women", they are far quieter.
So that you cannot sit around the table talking with friends after finishing the pizza and they can serve more customers with the same number of tables. Next question?
A solution is to stop revolving your life around alcohol. I was blessed with an upbringing in a family and culture that didn’t show alcohol and I suddenly found myself 25 years old without ever having drunk a sip except in rum-n-raisin ice cream. I was able to make the choice very easily to go the rest of my life without it.
Whether it’s work outing or friends gathering, I just pass if it’s supposed to be in a pub. Heck, I don’t even own pants or shoes worthy of wearing to a pub if I needed to.
Yet I feel I haven’t missed out on much and gained many other things. My friends now meet me during the day. The conversations are more memorable and deep and happen at coffee shops, restaurants or on our way to those places. Or if I’m particularly in a good mood I suppose a park.
As an outsider my opinion is that nothing good has come to humanity from the presence of alcohol. It is the worst drug to have invaded our history and that’s saying a lot given every other drug there is. And I’m not just talking about the deaths it causes.
You're not making an informed choice and reveling in your own ignorance
I used to think the same, and then I started to drink socially and saw
1. all the things I had been just quietly not been invited to previously
2. the social lubricant aspect of alcohol that I didn't appreciate till I experienced it. This is not just the physiological aspect , this is the social effect as well which can't be replicated sober (see freshmen college students getting "drunk" on alcohol-free beer).
Its difficult to articulate, but the excuse of inebriation creates a "safe space" to let loose in a sense. For instance, if you make an offcolor joke sober people may find it very funny , but they'll also think you maybe lack manners or don't know what's appropriate "She's funny, but kinda low EQ". If you are inebriated (or even pretending to be) then you are safe from judgment up to a point. This opens a lot of doors, and opportunities to bond with people.
Bc of the judgment aspect, no one likes to drink with someone sober - so you're just not seeing it for the most part
I had another analogous experience. All through high school and college I didn't use Facebook. In the last year of college I relented - suddenly I was being invited to stuff left and right.
You don't know what you don't know. Dogmatic beliefs not grounded in experience aren't worth much
Try drinking (responsibily) for a couple of years and then come back making your proclamations. There are very few people that have actively tried both lifestyles and chosen to be a teetotaler. When that does happen , it's generally because of issues of self control, a predisposition to alcoholism or bc they tried it a few times and never got used to it
Re: getting drunk on alcohol free beer. I remember one time in college at a party when I drank a large cup of Cola or Fanta something. Then colleagues laughed and told me it was half vodka.
In like 5 minutes I could barely walk. Then they laughed again, told me there was no vodka, they were joking. A minute later I was perfectly sober.
Then they laughed again and said the joke was that there's no vodka, actually it was. Predictably, minutes later I was intoxicated again.
To this day I don't know if there was vodka involved or not.
I know this from modern perspective, I make myself a tonic vodka sometimes and the ratio of tonic over vodka needs to be very high to not taste the latter.
I’ll respectfully turn down the offer of drinking responsibly for any amount of time. The best medically grounded advice at this point is that the most responsible amount of alcohol to drink is zero. If you can. But then that goes to sugar as well. But I’m already used to sugar so that’s a hard sell for me, just as I assume it’ll be a hard sell to ask you to go sober. Which I won’t suggest either. If you already drink and like it, sure the best course is to keep it to a glass or two a week and have fun.
As for the “social lubricant” argument: sure people open up more once you pour a bunch of drinks in. I’ll also take your argument that maybe they truly don’t reveal their selves to sober me (I doubt it, I’m generally cooky and have multiple times been asked “are you sure you’re not drunk?”).
Also isn’t it interesting that alcohol brings out the worst qualities in many people as well? Almost every single instance of me hearing a friend having something “inappropriate” happen to them, it was in a bar or pub and there most definitely was alcohol involved. Only over the top creeps do inappropriate things when sober. I’d rather not be in a place where the likelihood of creepy shit going down skyrockets and watch a movie instead.
But what exactly do you reckon you learn from your friends or colleagues that I don’t get to? I have a good job, which I’ve progressed through quite well, so clearly I didn’t miss out on any inside detail that could have only been gleaned professionally over a drink. I have few friends but from what I hear from many, more meaningful ones than most people. Almost always when I skip a party or pub outing the next time I meet someone they just say “yeah you didn't miss much.”
If I’m missing on some secret second life that is only accessible after you sign up to permanently imbuing this drug forever, yeah I’ll pass. Sounds like a cult and it doesn’t matter what orgy or salvation it promises. Sometimes it’s more important to keep your freedom and senses than to experience everything.
I find your response very perplexing. You make this great analogy with sugar (that's really good! I'll make sure to use it in the future) and then you just kinda.. Dismiss it with a "well I'm already addicted to that" ???
I'd encourage you to take that analogy further and think about
- sugar is significantly more addictive. Almost everyone basically craves sweet things regularly. Unless predisposed to alcoholism the vast majority of people do not crave alcohol. If you start to drink and you are thinking about getting a drink when idle at work - then you have an issue and should probably stop. I get the sense from your response that you think this is the default - but I can assure you it's not. At the moment I drink about once every couple of weeks. During the pandemic I was very busy and didn't drink at all. At no point did I "want a drink". Alcoholism is a very serious issue that affect many, but for the vast majority of society this isn't a direct concern (though it seems to affect European countries a lot harder)
- sugar is consumed regularly and is vastly worse for your health that a few drinks once a week or something to that effect
- sugar has basically no social benefits for you. And basically no longer term benefits. There are no sugar orgies I'm sorry to say. It just momentarily makes you a bit happier
You can continue to not drink and life will pass you by. If you're in an alcohol consuming society you will just make fewer connections with people, make fewer friends and fall in love less. But it's doable. I think back on all my close friends - and if I didn't drink EVER I think I'd estimate I'd have 30-50% fewer friends. It's not the end of the world - but it's a significant difference. Most people are shy and take time to open up (myself included). Maybe you connect a bit, but then life makes you sail-by. I now live in a society where people drink a lot less and I constantly make acquaintances that just don't stick. A night out with some drinks doesn't fix everything, but it definitely gives people a chance to connect in a way that's much harder organically. You could argue that "real" "true" friends will connect regardless - it's probably true.. Like 60% of the time? So you leave 40% on the table
My own mental analogy would be like if you insisting everyone reach out to yo by email b/c you're worried about your privacy. Sure you'd still make some friends and still have a life.. But most people won't even bother - and they'll have their orgies on Facebook without you
I spent a couple years in college station. The concept of a designated driver did not exist there. I doubt it does in any campus. The main places I’ve found myself around drunk people was in academic conferences and in work outings/happy hours. Well employed, highly educated people. Not unemployed hobos. And a good fraction of them start touching inappropriately. Sure it’s still anecdotal but I didn’t claim to anything but. What non anecdotal data are you looking for? This literally commentary on a letter to an editor in the times.
What for you seems like inappropriate touching might just be bonding for them. This is what the other commenter meant by bonding better when drunk - what is inappropriate sober suddenly becomes appropriate, and that makes people feel more connected.
Nothing wrong with not drinking, but alcohol has its pluses and minuses. I myself barely drink these days due to having small kids and getting the worst hangovers at this age, but I can't imagine I'd be the same person socially if I hadn't had alcohol when I was younger. I would not have had as good discussions with friends, nor met a fraction of the people I did (including of the opposite sex, including my wife). No health problems as a result, maybe I would have been slightly more focused in my studies, but it would hardly have made a difference to where I am now. The gained social skills vastly outweigh the lost study potential.
In Spain alcohol it's basically something for granted. If you don't drink, you are the outsider, or you must be ill to not be harashed for not drinking a beer in the pub with your friends.
> Try drinking (responsibily) for a couple of years
Active preaching of alcohol, this is the dumbest advice I’ve ever heard, maybe just after some people preaching for pornography. A drunk you is objectively not any better than a sober one, rather far worse. You have one life, don’t waste it.
I'm a European and have seen the devastating effects of alcohol on both sides of my family. I can't imagine any positive effects that would be able to offset and I've never drank a drop in my life.
You can be. But one of the well known effects of alcohol is to impair the judgment of those that consume it which can lead to the intention to drink a moderate amount of alcohol being (substantially) surpassed.
Between drunk drivers, abused spouses and abused children there is a ton of alcohol related misery. For me personally none of the positive effects of alcohol begin to offset those. Not everybody is able to deal with addictive substances in a responsible way.
I'm perfectly ok with other people drinking (as long as they don't negatively impact others), I just saw the generalization above and figured I would contribute a slightly different point of view.
I do think drinking is great, but part of it is finding what amount you're comfortable with. It's also a skill that needs to be developed. Just saying no and not even trying it... I feel bad for these people people bc they're missing out on a lot
For context I drink maybe once every couple of weeks - unless it's a particularly social period of my life. I find this a good medium for me
My life is infinitely more enjoyable waking up early to watch the sun rise while gardening instead of waking up hungover at 11 am to wonder what I did or said last night I don't remember.
Not to be that guy, but social drinking isn’t about getting trashed every night and waking up at 1PM. Nor it’s about getting drunk so much where you don’t remember the previous night. To put into a perspective, I have a few drinks almost every night, but also go hiking or snowboarding at 6AM. Maybe it’s a PNW kinda thing, but I can guarantee I’m not an exception to the rule.
The social drinking is about grabbing a drink or two, either solo or friends, to let yourself loose a bit. It’s about temporarily changing your attitude towards your environment, maybe cracking a couple of silly jokes. Maybe sitting at a beach or a park, watching sunset while listening to your surroundings.
Moderation is the key when it comes to mind-altering substances. Obviously it’s easier to say, but if super-majority of your experiences are positive, it is ok to suffer from some mild bad experiences (agonizing hangovers a couple of times a year).
One can drink in moderation indeed. One nation can’t. When drinks are allowed, you get zillions of divorces, car crashes, mortal figths, murders, and much more every year.
Sorry, I didn’t mention that my religion prohibits the use of any and all mind altering substances. So it’s not possible for me to drink in moderation either. I’m glad for this restriction I choose to obey. I’d rather have me control me at all times rather than some altered version of myself.
Do you think there was any point anywhere in history where people weren’t enjoying drinking together?
FFS one of the miracles of the founding religion of our society is about a guy turning water into alcohol at a party! And that was thousands of years ago!
I don’t believe people ever enjoy drinking. It’s bad to have your mind altered and mental capabilities such as memory reduced, period. To do and say things you normally wouldn’t.
It’s rather that those who regularly drink can’t enjoy themselves without drinking when the time for a fix comes. It’s an addiction, even if withdrawals are less noticeable due to normalization of drinking and the regularity of the act for most people.
That's rather a false dichotomy. I can't remember the last time I had a proper hangover and I can see the sunrise whenever I choose (although I'm not especially an early riser - but that has been true my entire life)
For what it's worth I was a teetotaler for religious reasons till 18, they I drank through my 20s (usually 1-2 beers in pub with friends, on weddings etc I drank wódka pretty heavily cause I'm in Poland, but that was maybe twice a year thing). I stopped again in 30s for health reasons (unrelated to drinking).
There isn't much difference IMHO. Most people don't care if you drink. The single biggest issue is dancing without alcohol, but I managed in high school so I'm fine now.
That's super interesting. You feel you are connecting and making friends at the same pace? I moved from a very drink-heavy society to one where people drink very sparingly. I now often make aquaintences and have the feeling that if only I went out for some drink with them then we could potentially be friends. It never happens, and life makes up sail past each other
Maybe I'd still not connect :)) but my gut feeling is that I could at least make 30% more friends if not significantly more
I'm still going to after-work parties from time to time, I just drink nonalcoholic stuff.
The biggest difference in friend-making was when I graduated and started to work, not when I stopped drinking 5 years later. Also I was never very social to begin with. So maybe what's normal for me is "not connecting" for you :)
Yeah, I could see maybe life circumstances not bringing it out. I'm naturally quite shy and reserved and not particularly outgoing around new people. So I feel some drinks help in this regards as it set a nice social setting to open up. But for instance if you're mainly meeting friends-of-friends then I could see alcohol playing a smaller role
Interesting to think about. Thanks for the perspective :)
The convenience of human existence at the moment is that you can make a number of mistakes every day and it doesn't lower the chances of your survival, your ability to leave offspring, and even can't hurt your self-esteem at all.
> When that does happen , it's generally because of issues of self control, a predisposition to alcoholism or bc they tried it a few times and never got used to it
Or maybe it’s because my drinking buddies got older and I saw the toll it takes on people
It’s like the day you realize how much better life is when you get a good nights sleep and then can never go back
See to me the whole idea of "drinking buddies" always felt a bit excessive.
With close friends I don't particularly need alcohol to let loose. I don't worry about how I come off or feel judged. I can be crass or obnoxious when the mood takes me. Their opinions of me have already been cemented over the years.
Sure sometimes you can get together and get trashed and turn it up a notch - but it's never necessary
To me all the benefits i illustrated are in the realm of meeting new people and making new connections - or trying to get with people from the acquaintance stage to the friend stage I suppose
How on earth can you claim to feel like you havent missed out on much when youve never tried it. What you're describing is more akin to growing up in your parents religion than making a personal choice.
Of course I know I’m missing out on a lot. We all do. You reach peace and wisdom by acknowledging that you’re not gonna experience EVERYTHING. The question is what matters more to you. I decided and am happy that I chose to forego midnight escapades fueled by alcohol or the pursuit of it. In return I’ve gained more time when I’m at peace, more valuable time with friends, and one less vice to worry about.
Heck, if you really want to try it once for the experience, go ahead under supervision. And don't fall for the 'it didn't ruin my life the first time'. That is just the bait. Its never as good as the first time, you chase the dragon, and you feel like crap later.
As someone who drank heavily for ten years, I can confirm that this person didn't miss out on anything, except feeling like crap all the time, and money that disappears.
There are levels between "never touched a glass, don't even enter a bar" and "drinking heavily and feeling like crap all the time".
FWIW, I've had my deepest conversations in late evenings after a gig with a glass of white wine in my hand from which I sipped for like an hour. (I'm a musician.) My life would be fundamentally different without a single sip or even entering a bar, and I would really miss something.
I did social drinking and in the beginning it was cool. At some point however it became really boring and I stopped completely (well ok in 10 years since I'd stopped I might have drank 3 glasses of wine). I still hang out with the same friends and there are no problems at all.
There isn't thousands of years of social precedence around winding down by shooting heroine with your friends.
No one's saying alcohol is healthy, but you're certainly cutting out a certain potential for social experiences by avoiding bars and alcohol. For some people the effect help them loosen up enough to have positive, meaningful interactions they wouldn't have otherwise.
As a past high functioning alcoholic. That line of reasoning sounds very familiar. I used to tell myself the same thing. But once you stop drinking, you start seeing that the drinking was adding to the stress, and personal relationships were not as 'meaningful' as I thought. Hanging out drinking is not as 'deep' as it appears when not drinking.
Many studies do show that alcohol leads to additional stress, which then drives the need for additional drinking.
EDIT
Don't take me wrong. You seemed to really focus on the Religious side. I'm just saying that there are a lot of valid Health Reasons (Non-Moral, Non-religious) reasons not to drink.
And, I'm not saying I don't like drinking. Just because I'm an addict doesn't mean I don't like drinking.
Quite literally you have missed out, yes. The question is: is that a problem? I generally don't suffer from FOMO, and any current science on alcohol (which the WHO basically classifies as hard drug, it's just one that's culturally accepted in many places) is pointing towards the safe dose being 0.
I unfortunately come from a culture where alcohol consumption is accepted, so it's been harder than I would like to break with tradition in the face of science, but doing so it a good thing, and if your cultural background helps you a hand because it does not accept alcohol as readily as mine, more power to you.
Drugs FOMO is some of the stupidest FOMO around. I've nothing against using soft drugs, but making any drug part of your life style is almost certainly a bad idea, and if never even trying suits your personality type (some are just more easily addicted than others), then you are wise for steering clear, not an ignorant traditionalist (or at least, not necessarily so).
That does not mean gathering in third places is problematic, I do wish we could come up with ways of doing it without the expectation of the consumption of alcohol.
But we accept risk because of benefits a car moving faster than 0 brings. I might say same about some of psychedelic drugs. At least from my personal experience.
You might be stopped in your car in the parking space but someone else might just crash into your car.
So just being in the car on a public road or parking will be safer than driving but not safe as in zero chances of being involved in an accident.
The same goes with alcohol even if you dont consume you are not completely safe from its effects: someone might drink and drive or drink and operate a machinery or drink and build your house …
Probably the same can be said about tiredness or something else. We should pick our battles. I am not sure which ones are better. Just found it funny that even sitting in the car is not safe enough as long as we have vehicles
Not sure how that’s a rebuttal, the scenario you described is a danger because the speed of the other car is not zero. It’s telling that the only scenario you found to make it dangerous was to bring another moving car into the equation.
Well, yes, you have missed out. Clearly you're choosing to miss out because you don't think it's worth it - but that doesn't change the fact you're missing out.
You’ll be missing out on some experiences for sure. Would it be a net positive? Probably not. But you really can’t quite comprehend the feelings you’re missing out on.
There might be tangential things you don’t experience too, places you’ll never go, and people you’ll never meet.
I see what you're saying but this only leads to a discussion about the differences between heroin and alcohol, rather than deciding if you can roughly judge alcohol use from the outside.
If most of the population did heroine and hard drugs to socialize then probably, yeah?
I've also never drank besides the occasional cocktail, and I can count on my hands the number of times I've bent to a bar. I had other kind of experiences instead and I wouldn't change it, but of course I've missed out on certain things.
„Most of population did“ is not exactly a good meter wether something is good or bad. „Most of population did“ quite a few things that didn't turn out that well.
We're talking about "missing out", not about something being a net positive or a net negative.
But also that was just to point out that IMO the analogy with hard drugs doesn't work, I don't want to debate about a hypothetical world where most people do hard drugs.
That world is not hypothetical: there's a debate whether we should differentiate between "soft" and "hard" drugs (because we might be encouraging people to use the soft ones by doing so), but one thing is for sure: alcohol is a "hard" drug, same as heroin.
You do miss out, but of course the value of what you miss out is nothing compared to the devastating consequences to their life that practically everyone using heroin experience.
On the other hand, many people drink alcohol and live perfectly normal lives. So I don't think that's an informative comparison.
There is a community around drug users, especially the type they select to use. So - while that decision tree never happens to you, to some people, invested in the community and such would say yes.
That's the beauty of life. You write your own adventure. Whether people know it or not... eh.
Alcohol has been a significant part of many cultures for thousands of years, while heroin most certainly has not (and still is not to this day, aside from a cultural fringe here and there). That seems like a relevant difference?
I dare say we never-drinkers know a lot more about the drinking life we miss out on than you drinkers know about the never-drinking life you miss out on.
That's true of most minority positions, just like atheists generally know more about Christians than vice versa ... since you brought up religion, I'd say it is going with the drinking culture flow that is the equivalent of blindly staying with your parent's religion.
And just like with atheism vs. religion, we don't just always make the choice that's easy and comfortable. Like the guy above here who finds that he's more included socially when he drinks - yeah, no shit he is, and he'd be more included in a Pentecostal meeting too if he spoke in tongues. Should we all just go along with things that seem dishonest or insane to us, for the sake of fitting in?
> I dare say we never-drinkers know a lot more about the drinking life we miss out on than you drinkers know about the never-drinking life you miss out on.
I dare say the opposite, as many drinkers routinely experience not drinking, while the opposite is by definition not true.
I'm a drinker but I have sometimes spent several months without drinking, for various reasons. Including spending months at countries where I didn't drink at all and people I met wouldn't even know whether I usually drink or not.
Honestly I have never saw those wonders of the "never-drinking life" that I'm supposed to be missing. It's the same (drinkers can meet friends during the day and outside of bars, too!) minus the activities that involve drinking.
Of course I realize that. Just like I realize Christians don't spend every walking moment talking in tongues. Doesn't mean they understand the atheist life better than atheists understand theirs.
Aside, this sort of "hilarious reply!" post isn't exactly nice when I'm right here is it.
Isn’t that like saying that able-bodied people know just as much about being a wheelchair user because able-bodied people also spend time sitting?
The life of a teetotaler is not just your life minus the time you are drinking. Indeed, you explicitly make GP’s point when you say, “I never saw those wonders of the “never-drinking life” that I am supposed to be missing.”
Now, I would not argue that being a teetotaler is wonderful. I don’t drink because my father was an alcoholic. I feel like I have missed out of vast swaths of life. To me, the experience varies from fine to quite isolating and painful (especially when I was younger and conformity mattered more).
When I was younger, going to a bar and not drinking was like being a virgin late in life while everyone is talking about sex. Once you’ve had sex, you realize no one judges virgins. But as the virgin, you feel painfully alone. You know your friends’ awareness of your difference is harshing their mellow a bit.
But in the end, it is absurd to argue with people on the internet over who knows more about life. That’s a conversation better over a beer. I guess.
You have tried being teporarily sober, but you have not truly seen alcohol culture from outside.
I didn't say doing that would be wonderful, that was your own words. It's not fun to be the only atheist at a Pentecostal meeting either, but as I said: sometimes you choose what to do for other reasons than fitting in and having fun.
> You have tried being teporarily sober, but you have not truly seen alcohol culture from outside.
I used not to be a drinker (not total teetotaler, but would never drink when out) well into my 30s. Now I do drink.
I much prefer drinking.
I do think that "alcohol culture" means different things to different people in different places and at different ages. To generalize massively, I don't think much of the stereotypical way way 19yos from the UK drink when in Ibiza.
But I do enjoy 4 or 5 cocktails or whiskys in a good bar (which for me isn't one with loud music incidentally) with good company.
You are comparing the majority, whose culture I'm exposed to every day in lots of ways I would prefer not to, to a distant continent? Great own, buddy.
As someone who grew up in a heavy drinking part of Europe, I never had an issue to meet friends without drinking, e.g. during the day. My fondest memories with them happened both with or without alcohol, that was never the factor.
Granted, there are people that you never meet outside of a bar or pub and there are people that always have to get a drink, but that might depend on the circles you are in.
Alcohol certainly isn't healthy, and a heavily drunk person is certainly more unpleasant than let's say a heavily stoned one, yet I would not discount the amount of conversations that people dared to have just because they had a glas of wine before. Sure, I'd love people to open up without that glas and sure, some people won't be able to ever open up without it and that's bad, but most people don't overdo it with the alcohol, just like most people don't drink 4 kegs of coffee each day. Whether alcohol is a bad thing over all depends on the amount.
This is pretty strongly worded. I would only say you were "blessed" if your were predisposed to alcoholism. My life has had a huge variety of phases, some 6 months or one year periods with alcohol and others often longer 2-3 years almost entirely without. There is no seduction to the substance for me, nothing to need "quitting", yet there were a few amazing memories that wouldn't have happened without. I feel I got to see it all, and the ideal is probably having a group of friends who indulge without limit once in a great while - every two or three months.
I think this would benefit most people, the exception are "super connectors" who have social abilities so strong that they effortlessly connect to people and connect other pairs (1% or less of the population afaik) without expenditg effort.
But for me, introverted, if I never used alcohol I wouldn't even understand the concept of stopping being uptight and reserved for a single moment to know what life "could be like". This knowledge helps me fight the overwhelming urge when sober to let the inward inclination be all consuming.
> Heck, I don’t even own pants or shoes worthy of wearing to a pub if I needed to.
I wonder if your idea of what going to a bar is has been coloured by TV, movies etc. It doesn’t have to be glamorous. Most bars do not have a dress code. I don’t usually dress differently to go for a beer than I do when I am working.
Interesting perspective, but I think it’s a little conceited to claim you haven’t missed out on anything because you have deeper conversations with people during the day.
I do agree that it’s an awful drug with terrible health consequences. Living the healthiest life possible as often as possible is not necessarily the best way to live, in my opinion. Of course best is subjective.
That's a valid opinion. Society would probably be much better off without alcohol. Ironically, I say this as someone who occasionally drinks (around 1-2 beers a week, at most). It's not about me, it's about the entire society that revolves around getting drunk. Parents who become entirely different people around their kids. Can't be good.
PS, do you really think muslim countries don't drink? They are in some ways the worst. The sheer amount of alcohol consumed by locals in places like Saudi Arabia, for example.
I was visiting London by myself last week. Few people I know were busy so I couldn't meet them.
In three free days I had, I went to coffee shops, restaurant, parks and a pub. Guess where I met new people. Not saying you can't in other places, but to start an interaction with a stranger is so much more relaxed in(front of) a pub. Sure I could go to that group of people in the park, but wouldn't be that a bit to intrusive? In the blues pub where I went, at least I know they all like the same music as me.
I had a chat with people who lived in the city their whole life. I had a chat with a person from the country with a similar name, the one others constantly mistake us for, I had a chat with a regular from a bar and someone who just arrived to the city. I chatted with someone who studied the same thing as me. I met someone who showed me a similar place couple of blocks away with whom I then walked and talked most of the night (in a park :) ).
And no one really expects you to drink. What is more, if you are not there at strange night hours, most of the people don't act that differently after two or three beers.
I split my early 20 between NYC and London and my life revolved around bars, pubs and parties. By 25, I had quite literally had enough. Impossible to say how my life would have turned out if I'd never lived that life, but I don't really look back fondly on any of it. In the 20 years since those days, I've been drunk maybe twice and drink zero alcohol most weeks.
Which blues pub was it? I used to enjoy going to the 12 bar in Denmark Street but a lot of the music scene there has closed down now. That used to be where a lot a the musical instrument shops were. Unfortunately due to rents and online selling there aren't too many physical music shops anymore in Central London.
This is the only acceptable reason I can see for going to a pub, if this truly matters to you. I don’t mind meeting and knowing new people, but honestly just don’t see the net benefit. Going to a pub to not get drunk, they better have stellar jazz or killer wings lol. Not sure I’d do it anywhere except in New Orleans. Where I have.
I didn’t say I never went to a bar or pub. I still end up in one once a year or two. Every time it’s just wasted. My friends say less interesting things more slurred. You don’t realize how stupid you have to become to find drunk people conversations interesting. Jenga can be fun only if you’re playing with a kid or if a drug has knocked most of your cerebral cortex offline.
Jenga enjoyment doesn’t really have much to do with cerebral cortex functioning imo. It’s a simple game with simple rules, some minor stakes, and no capacity for completely bullshit strategies where a smug asshole can ruin the game for everyone else. This makes it broadly appealing, allows people to jump in and out as needed, and gives a conversation to be had around while not hoarding up the conversation with the game itself. This reads like someone who is justifying their personal choices by putting down the choices of others. If you don’t drink, don’t drink, but also there’s no reason to go out and build straw man arguments about drinkers.
You mistake your very personal opinions for universal facts.
A lot of people enjoy Jenga and other dexterity games. It's just not your cup of tea. But please stop telling yourself that you not liking Jenga is a sign of superior intellect.
Drinking doesn't mean getting drunk, except to college kids. No friend of mine ever drinks to the point of slurring speech, it's a sign of a problem in an adult and quite distasteful. Drinking with friends is fun, getting drunk is stupid.
Alcohol is often lovingly referred to as a social lubricant. While some people (such as yourself apparently) have great social skills out of the box others like myself occasionally require the help of some Dutch courage when acting outside of our comfort zone and I think it is unfair to judge us so harshly for it.
I have had my fair share of drinks over the years but it never took over my life, it is a nice middle ground of it is there but not a key feature.
That said, you having never had a sip. Right on! Each to their own path and I completely get why some folks never try it. Just doesn't interest them and you cannot miss what you never had I guess.
I've been drunk, had a couple of beers and tried pretty much the whole spectrum of alcohol consumption and honestly I've never been a fan.
It makes you stupider, less able to control your actions, your emotions and your thoughts. That allows for fights, hooking up randomly which isn't good for anybody and even makes people dependent on it in order to have sex.
It basically makes you more like an animal and less like a human. People like it because they don't like being human, it's hard to have fun as a human, much easier to let go of your higher functions and behave on autopilot then blame it on whatever substance they're on for whatever stupid shit they did.
There was a period of my life where I felt I required it to work, but not to have fun. It was a programming job, but to get the work done I needed to be stupider and behave on autopilot.
I do not recommend this. Dark times, and I am thankfully past this.
But anyway, I agree with your premise. People do it to subdue their higher order thinking. If you’ve never wished to do this, then you might just be better suited (or better adapted) to your environment.
Ha ha slowly it came to that yes. I own one pair of Levi jeans (my waist fluctuates too much and my social calendar demands none of it so I just don’t keep more than one) which I rarely use (tropical country now). Only gym and running shoes, I’m a sandals guy. Of course this changes when I’m in New York in winter but I still just have boots and that same single pair of jeans I suppose.
Well I don't know New York but in a proper pub they will be fine with whatever trousers and shoes you have. For that matter I once walked into a country pub (not one where they know me) in only wet swimming trunks and we persuaded them to serve us on credit.
That's exactly what I'd wear to a pub, bar, restaurant or cafe so not sure why you'd think that would be an issue. Even most nightclubs don't bother about dress codes much these days.
You are definitely not missing out on anything. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to themselves OR isn't as healthy as they think.
Everyone will agree that eating 6-8 slices of bread per day is NOT good for your health but will sing a completely different tune about drinking 2-3 beers at a bar because "socializing" and other excuses.
Ultimately, drinking is the cheapest/easiest way to "socialize" while investing the minimal amount of time thinking about who they want to associate with. The alternative of finding a club, picking up a new activity, and learning what you like/dislike is way more expensive from a time perspective then kicking back 2-4 drinks in a dimly lit room across the street.
I also grew up in a family and cultural setting that didn't involve any alcohol at all until I was about 25.
I've since done almost a complete 180, and now it's very unlikely that a week goes by without alcohol consumption of some sort. I have tonnes of fun and it makes social interactions so much easier for someone like me. And pretty much all of my close social circles have a reasonably healthy relationship with booze, so it's not like we're going out and getting plastered on weekends.
I guess what I'm trying to say is: there's all sorts.
Edited to add: What 'contrarian1234 said in a sibling comment as well.
Your story is similar to most of my friends’ stories. We all grew up without any alcohol around and the default behavior is to crave the thing you’re told not to have I suppose.
Godspeed as long as you are it’s master and not the other way around.
I also grew up largely without alcohol anywhere in sight. To the extent that as a child I perceived bars and beer gardens as mildly threatening - my family never went there, so I didn't understand why some people were so loud.
With that out of the way:
> Whether it’s work outing or friends gathering, I just pass if it’s supposed to be in a pub.
There's a selection of non-alcoholic drinks in every bar nowadays. You don't really have to limit your social life like that just because you don't drink alcohol, unless you're trying to make some kind of point.
While many succumb to the pressure of going to bars for corporate reasons or peer pressure, it would be more accommodating for culture to be less focused around consumption of a harmful substance like alcohol which has such drastic consequences demonstrated, both long term and short term. A lot of non-drinkers would not even like to be in an environment where everyone else is drinking.
Luckily, sober culture is becoming more popular as people realize the consequences of a society where alcohol consumption is widespread — cirrhosis, alcoholism, and various social ills & wastes of money and time.
I think most of reactions here are because comment reads like you believe someone who drinks alcohol cannot go for a dinner to a restaurant or to grab a coffee and be sober.
You know that people who drink also meet people sober and most of their life they are sober to do work and much of socializing as well.
Going with comment on "conversations are more memorable and deep" comes off as smug just like you would show off how many IQ points you have.
I don't meet people to have "memorable or deep insights", I meet people because I like them and I feel like giving them my time is nice thing to do and I am happy that they feel that I am worthy enough so they want to spend time with me.
Ach, I understand, there are a lot of issues with alcohol. Had quite a journey myself.
That said, I liked the article and might give this a go some time. My hearing is lousy for the same reasons as the author.
Whilst I don't drink regularly I have many friends who do. My favourite place to have a catch up and a deep talk is on the hill walking my dog, but that's a bit intense for some friends, and cafes, restaurants and such can also be pretty noisy.
Judging others' drinking misses the point of the article. As we age, we need different spaces and mechanisms for socialising. This is one I'd not thought of, and I enjoyed the author's solution and story.
Absolutism is often misguided, especially in light of history. This reminds me of the people saying the US and the West are a curse to the global south because of their constant meddling without giving credit for the green revolution and airplanes and so on. Similarly alcohol is indeed a poison with great social costs, but it is also a social lubricant which has enabled people to meet and exchange with others and has helped to start many long lasting relationships. Maybe it should just go away, but it probably will not.
> the US and the West are a curse to the global south
There is much controversy around this, but by and large most people agree that US interference in South America, and English interference in the Middle East and South Asia in the late 19th and 20th centuries was a net negative for all the resulting countries. Much of American and English wealth was built on extracting resources and wealth out of these countries and concentrating them in Europe and the US. Heck, the very crown of the King of England has an Indian/Pakistani diamond in it.
I hardly drink anything these days and have been drinking very rarely for the last 10 years. In my 20ies i drank way too much, although never alone. After all, i think your approach is better. Yes, you have probably missed out on some things. For me that would have been parties and music happenings i would not want to miss. But who knows what else i would have done had i just skipped that phase of my life.
Only alcoholics have lives revolving around alcohol and they're in the minority. You're simply missing out on a huge swath of adult socialization. I know many people who don't drink alcohol, but still go to pubs and bars to enjoy other types of drinks, food, and socialization. It't not at all uncommon.
Also, pubs do not require any kind of special pants or shoes.
Don't know about ice cream specifically, but for rum cream, they use rum essence rather than rum liquor. You'd need so much liquor to get the flavor people expect, it wouldn't be creamy anymore. I expect the same is true of other rum-flavoured things. Rum essence can be alcohol-based, but propylene glycol also is common and works just fine.
>The conversations are more memorable and deep and happen at coffee shops
More memorable than what - in pubs which you don't go to? You don't know because you've never partook, as you said. You don't know what you're missing out on. How then can you judge one way or the other?
I wouldn't dismiss alcohol as a net negative to humanity. Beer and wine are Lindy staples in European cultures, not just as intoxicants but primarily as food. And although your family culture is quite different, the majority culture of the wealthy, liberal country you received your world-class education from is alcohol-positive. There's something to that.
Note also that drinking alcohol doesn't mean drinking to excess, which is what many people seem to implicate when they talk about drinking alcohol.
Lindy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect;...the longer a period something has survived to exist or be used in the present, the longer its remaining life expectancy. Longevity implies a resistance to change, obsolescence or competition and greater odds of continued existence into the future.
Same with Linux, anime, hiking, metal, or anything else that lots of people like. Usually when people dismiss an entire category of things which they've never even tried, they're not operating out of a place of knowledge, just ideology.
It's super weird for the GP to feel such strong superiority over something they find themselves unable to even try without fear of disaster. We're supposed to consider them the more enlightened one?
I don't find it super weird, at least conceptually. Conceptually there could be things so dangerous that you can't try even once. Maybe he's mistaken in believing that alcohol belongs to that category, but the principle is conservative, if not optimal. Yes, better to err by never trying than by becoming addicted.
Disclosure, I enjoy alcohol, but I admire those who say "I won't try, not even once".
Fascinating. You dont know about the other side, but you seem to know how bad it is. Sorry, but if you dont know about it, dont talk about it. Yes, alcohol has pretty bad effects on certain people, but condemning every sort of social gathering with drinks like you do, without having any experience, is just strange. Feels like a priest giving advice on sex, just dont do it...
It’s a good skill to cultivate to try and guess how your life will be after you make some permanent choices. I have always been thoughtful about those and have generally had a good track record guessing how my life changes after each (moving to a different country, moving from academia to tech, moving from single life to a relationship etc). There’s always a possibility that I’ve missed on something by not drinking, but I’m yet to hear any person articulate that thing to me.
I think you've hit a nerve here! Turns out people do love their 'ways of life'.
It's also interesting that with a PhD in biomedical engineering, this is the conversation people choose to have.
As for what alcohol can give you that you don't already know about... It is the 'joy of being a dickhead' the 'wild abandon' or the 'abasement of self' in a communal ritual of shared identity. Some might go so far as to say that the 'revels of dionysus' or 'the bacchanalian' form an intrisic part of civilised identity where that which is proper is upended. Drinking together makes us human and civilised - for the very reason that drinking is choosing to leave civilisation behind.
Is there a line then, into this baccanalian, that can be crossed - where the party turns to the wretched vomit, the fool, the car-crash? Yes - there is this line, and how many of your detractors have crossed it - more than once?
Of the other muslim countries I've been to (Morocco, Malaysia, Egypt) I had no problems getting a drink anywhere and I saw locals drinking in each one.
There are indeed less and more religious local places. I'm in a more religious one. Btw you can always get a drink in Muslim countries if you're not Muslim, as per the Sharia.
We don’t have Sharia in Turkey and for countries that implement it, there’s leftover corruption and puppet govts from colonial era whose best interest is not exactly fully implementing Sharia. Those who do it (e.g. Afghanistan) are immediately sanctioned to poverty. There is 2+ billion muslims in the world and not everyone is religious. If we had Sharia here (we’re working towards it) those muslims would be subject to and benefit from the prohibition. We’re returning to the pre-colonial days of Islam though, see an analysis: https://muslimskeptic.com/2023/04/12/finally-admit-youth-rel...
Islam has had a much more varied history than the picture you are painting. Let's hope the conflation of extreme conservativism with "true Islam" is reaching the end of it's shelf life.
