Yes. I grew up in the Boston area.
NORM!!!
If I could afford it I would. Better than going home and sitting on my ass playing video games or whatever. Bars around here are too expensive though (just like everything else). I could drink for a month at home on what I spend for 1 trip to the bar.
I walk by some neighborhood bars, that are cheap and still some people go everyday like the Simpsons.
Videogames are better. I’ve come to recognize some of the “local drunks” that are there every day, they do be like Barney from the Simpsons. It seems a little depressing looking at them destroying themselves with booze.
Videogames are better
Not if your goal is to socialize they’re not.
They certainly can be. Plenty of online games center around socializing. It might not be enough for those who need daily physical contact but it is far from an anti-social hobby.
The scope of the socialization is extremely limited though. It’s centered around the game and unlikely to grow beyond that into a real relationship. It’s not like you can ask your internet friends who live hundreds of miles away to come help you move a couch or come to a barbecue or whatever. You don’t develop typically connections with your local community.
Admittedly playing WOW back in the day helped me a lot with getting over the social anxiety issues I have and learn to be a more functional adult. I’m not sure that would have happened had I not met the people I did in that game. But none of those friendships went beyond playing the game.
The scope of the socialization is extremely limited though. It’s centered around the game and unlikely to grow beyond that into a real relationship.
I know quite a few that counter that.
YMMV.I mean I’m open to suggestions, I’d like to form more connections with people, but I never had relationships from games transition into anything else. Everyone I’ve met through gaming has always been hundreds of miles away or in other countries so it’s not like we could meet up to do shit on the weekends.
You aren’t wrong but you’re making this sound like a universal good. I don’t particularly want to go bond with the local bbq guy who seems nice enough other than the little blue lives matter bumper sticker on his raised pickup truck. Sure he has truck nuts but it’s human contact.
The moving a couch example is kinda cringe so Im skipping.
Those were just examples. There’s thousands of reasons why having friends locally is valuable. Especially if you’re in USA with the way things are going. I’m really not sure what you even think the downsides are… If it’s the drinking aspect, you’re not required to drink at a bar, nobody really cares if you have something non-alcoholic instead.
Sure but the social aspect in games is often pretty toxic.
I played quite a lot of Dota 2 and while communication and cooperation greatly improve your chances of winning… More often then not it was just someone raging hard over minor mistakes.
Don’t know if I would have thought of Dota as a social game tbh. Maybe a more casual MMO?
But what about keep talking and nobody explodes, overcooked or genital jousting?
Deep Rock Galactic and especially Helldivers 2 gave me the most positive interactions with random strangers despite lack of dedicated social hubs or lobbies.
Yeah coop games are usually pretty good choices
Absolutely, just as you can wander into the wrong bar and end up in a fight.
Competitive games will definitely bring out the worst in some people though, but there’s plenty of co-operative and role-play games that can lead to good lasting friendships.
Strong disagree.
yeah same. also i don’t drink alcohol anymore but it would be nice to have more places to hang out.
Remember, no internet before this millenium, 3 to 7 television channels before cable, no TV before the 50s…
A lot of blue collar workers went straight to the bar after work 3-4 days a week.
I did sheet metal back in the 90’s for a year. Typical day… start at 6, off at 2:30, bar from 3-5. Pretty much everyday.
Yes, my dad was one of them. I haven’t gone to a bar for years but it used to be most smaller bars had at least a few regulars that basically lived there. I remember one old vet that used to show up every day as soon as the bar would open for his daily fix… It got to the point the bar refused to serve him, so he would try and get unsuspecting customers to buy them for him. (This was in the 70’s and 80’s, there were (or at least seemed to be) a lot more alcoholics back then.)
Also booze used to be a LOT cheaper, so it wasn’t nearly as expensive as it would be now.
I remember one old vet that used to show up every day as soon as the bar would open for his daily fix… It got to the point the bar refused to serve him
So he’d go to this bar during business hours to drink. And this went on to the point where they stopped serving him? Something is missing from the middle of this story…
I remember stories from my dad about a guy he knew where the bar maid would have to help him with the first drink in the morning because his hands would shake so much.
The romantic history of the happy drunk is almost entirely fictional. I say almost because I know a few people who are able to take it or leave it, but for the most part the people I know/knew who were drinking either in bunches or daily end up complete and unabridged alcoholics, whether they are active and in serious trouble or have sought help and straightened up, but cannot touch it.
I’m one of the rare happy drunks. Don’t drink often, I’m an extremely quiet person usually. But get a few beers in me and my wife says I won’t shut up but she also says it’s the only time she gets to talk to me. I don’t know why, I can’t hold a conversation when I’m sober. Never know what to talk about, my work life is boring so nothing interesting ever happens.
When I have a few, it’s likeeverything just starts coming out.
You sound very much like me.
When sober I’m Mr doesn’t talk a lot (but I will listen) after a beer or two I’m away with the chat.
I become become very vocal…
Yeah, I wouldn’t want to spend that much everyday, I’ll just have some beers at home for 1/5th the price
The extra price was so they weren’t drinking alone, or to avoid going home.
I’ve never been a big drinker but I have a few places around me where beer is $3. And the actual place my wife and I go if we do feel like drinking is our local VFW. I can get a 24 oz frosty on tap for like 2.50. and a jack and coke for 3. Last time we went out drinking spent like $30 total and we were both drunk
Damn - I’m in Seattle and it’s rare to find $6 drafts anymore.
Used to be? This is still common in many industries and localities.
The divide between cultures and populations becomes highly apparent on sites like this, which attract a very select group.
Yeah. My husband went out to the pub 6 nights a week. He’s no longer drinking - quit last year - finally! (I quit in 2009)
Seriously, alcohol is overrated.
I worked in a bar for a few years and I saw the same people everyday. They would even come in on holidays if the bar was open. Some of them would blow their whole paycheck, I always thought it was kinda sad.
In the show Clarkson’s Farm, Jeremy Clarkson is looking around, trying to buy a pub. At one point they talk about wanting to have a pub with a little grocery store attached. Clarkson’s girlfriend explained why that was common at one point in Ireland. It was because in the past men would get paid, go immediately to the pub, and drink until their paycheck was gone. If there was a shop attached to the pub, they could hand in an order at the shop before they started drinking. And then, even if they drank away the rest of their paycheck, they’d still be handed a bag of groceries before they were kicked out and had to stumble home.
I do. Most other people that come here are regulars also.
Not much else out there for community.
I don’t know about every night but I know plenty of dudes who have a watering hole they go to weekly.
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Yes. In my fathers time men would go there often for lunch and after work. I think some went home and then went over for an hour or two. Later it was still common but someone who did it all the time would be called a barfly but almost everyone did like friday night and pretty often thursday or saturday. Its diminished since and more and more bars have to sorta be restaurants or dance clubs or band venues.
I think the men were called “loadies”, getting loaded (drunk) before going home. Women got the much less forgiving name of being a “barfly.” However, that may have just been regional and/or for that era.
when I heard barflys it was always men who hung out every night in a bar.
Huh. Must have been regional where I was then.
Never heard of loadies but barfly was always a term used for women around me.
There’s a reason prohibition happened. Alcohol consumption back then was 3x higher than it is now, so it was not uncommon for men to get off work, go blow their paychecks at the bar, then go home and beat their wives.
Back in the day, they’d be getting drunk AT work.
Then they’d go to the bar and get wrecked.
Depends on the person. I think it was more common 20-30 years ago than now in some places.
me and my friends used to be regulars in a shitty pub where there was a group of older people who would be in there all day every day.
he was probably double my age but it didn’t stop him coming over to our table and pestering me and some of the other women.
we didn’t go in too frequently but the staff recognised us as regulars. we had to stop because some nasty people would come in on a specific day and one of our group wqs afraid of running into them.
