There is an art to sitting at a bar and doing almost nothing.
I don’t mean drinking, although that may be involved. I mean sitting there among familiar people without feeling any particular obligation to entertain them, interrogate them or tell them everything that has happened to you at any time in your life – especially the negative stuff – or even since the last time you occupied that seat.
Most of the regulars at my local hangout have mastered this.
We’re mostly quiet people and around the same age, give or take a few years. Someone might comment on the game. Somebody tells a quick story or chat with the servers when they get a minute. There might be a five-minute conversation about the weather, golf, hockey, football, the price of groceries, or something ridiculous that happened earlier in the day or week. Then we go back to doing nothing. And it’s wonderful.
There’s companionship in simply being around other people. You don’t necessarily have to be talking to them. Sometimes it’s enough to hear the background noise, watch the televisions, write a few lines in your notebook (like I do), exchange a few words with the bartender, and know familiar faces are sitting nearby.
It’s the proverbial guys at the bar just being guys at the bar.
Even the more talkative regulars understand the unwritten rules. Conversation is welcome. Participation is optional. Nobody needs to fill every silence.
More importantly, nobody requires an audience.
Then there’s Dave (not his real name).
Dave has problems – lots of them. Well, who doesn’t?
I know this because Dave tells us about them. And tells us about them. And then, just in case anyone missed an episode, tells us about them again. It’s always the same with a few tidbits added each time. With the more serious ones, it’s almost like he is protesting his innocence in all matters in his attempt to get everyone on his side. Of course, we’re getting only one side of the story.
One particularly perceptive regular suggested I put Dave in my “Do Not Engage” file.
Everyone – including me – has bad days and has endured, or is enduring, a rough patch in their life. Everyone occasionally needs to talk. If somebody I’ve come to know says he’s going through something difficult, of course I’ll listen. That’s part of being human.
But there’s another category of conversation in which you slowly realize you haven’t joined a discussion. You’ve been assigned a role.
You’re the audience, sounding board, and unpaid therapist – sometimes for over an hour.
I’ve suggested to Dave that, in addition to his actual therapy, he try keeping a handwritten journal. I’ve been doing it for a long time and it’s amazing how useful it is.
A handwritten journal doesn’t care about grammar, spelling, neatness. or syntax. Parts of mine are a sprawling mess filled with scratch outs and scribbles.
You can write the same thing six times. You can contradict yourself. You can swear. You can write three pages about something completely insignificant because, at that particular moment, it doesn’t feel insignificant. You can write 10 pages one day and four lines the next. It’s yours.
Nobody is going to grade it.
And there’s something about seeing thoughts on paper instead of letting them spin endlessly inside your head. Handwriting slows the process down. You have to turn the noise into sentences. Eventually you reach the bottom of the page, close the notebook, and walk away. When the notebook is filled, you can keep it, burn it, or shred it.
The thoughts now exist somewhere other than inside you. Other people shouldn’t have to serve the same function.
Maybe that’s what I appreciate so much about the quiet regulars. We leave one another alone and respect each other’s time, space, and personality.
That sounds antisocial until you’ve experienced how oddly social it actually is.
There is comfort in sitting among people who don’t require anything from you. You can join a conversation or not. You can stare at the television or just sit there with your thoughts. You can read the newspaper on your phone, and no one will judge you.
We’re together without being responsible for one another’s entertainment.
It’s companionship without demands.
Perhaps that’s why one person who constantly unloads can change the atmosphere so dramatically. He breaks the quiet social contract everyone else instinctively understands.
Sometimes I’ll go elsewhere to chat with people or even stay home all day because I don’t feel like dealing with Dave if he comes in. Other times I’ll go because I want the company – the pleasant company, but not the company that will leave me feeling drained.
