Are you a regular at a bar?

No. But I am a regular at a Vietnamese restaurant.

never seen one from the inside.

Not a regular. When I was a teen and in my 20’s I went out regularly to night clubs, but the main thing was the dancing.

The bar isn’t the problem, the alcohol is.

Nope, but the neighborhood pub has gone by the wayside here in the states. There were a couple of good pubs I frequented in my 20’s though.

No. Before I got married I regularly went out to nightclubs to dance, but mostly to shoot pool, but I was never a regular at any one bar.

I most definitely wouldn’t be one today. There is nothing sadder than an old man or old woman, sitting at a bar, trying to either recapture their youth, or to get some kind of life that they missed out on.

As for going after work, that’s your business…unless you have a family who counts on you to come home to them everyday.

They know my name but I am not sure that makes me a regular. And a couple drinks after work should be encouraged and not vilified. Long day, relax for 90 minutes. This assumes you aren’t neglecting more important things to sit in the bar.

I have no wife or kids so if I want to unwind for a few hours with a few pints and maybe meet new people there is absolutely nothing wrong. But if the bar makes you miss my basketball game you have a problem. (fuck off dad)

No. I’ve been raising children for the last 23 years. I don’t vilify those who do as long as they take care of business at home.

I’ve never been a regular at a bar, but I’ve never lived in a city with neighborhood pubs.

I think it sounds really cool, and I wouldn’t condemn someone someone from hanging out there a few hours a week.
Like a non-prime time regular, right? Hanging out a bit with your mates during the off hours, @Buffaloman?

No, I’m not. I grew up in the UK where I think it’s more common to have a ‘local’ pub. I regularly went to certain pubs with my work mates. It was about getting together socially and having fun. I also had pubs close to home I’d go to. I didn’t always drink alcohol. Indeed I often didn’t drink alcohol. So I guess it depends on whether you’re going there and drinking a lot of alcohol or whether it’s more about the social opportunities. As long as you’re not getting rat arsed every night, who cares whether people think it’s appropriate to visit a particular bar after work.

I have enough problems living my own life to be critical of how someone else lives theirs.

Im not a bar regular cuz i dont have the time or the money. Booze is expensive for me. But everyone is different. If it works for you then great. Just remember to keep balance in your life.

I like going to a bar because it’s nothing like work or home. Sometimes I look at the people there and tell myself, I don’t want to be them, but then I look at people with fat wives and inbred looking kids, and think, I don’t want to be them either.

The bar is the neutral ground.

No. When I was in my late teens and early 20’s, I’d go to bars with friends but that ended. The last time I went into a “bar” bar just for a drink, I don’t remember. Now, if anything, it will be a bar at a restaurant or catered facility like at a wedding but other than that, no.

I don’t condemn anybody for going to bars all the time. As far as other people’s drinking habits, it’s not good for their health but that’s not my concern.

Gosh. Fat wives and inbred looking kids, huh?
Wow.

@msh I know. I wonder where that jelly lives?

the south?

@Buffaloman

Gee, judgemental much?

Well, I guess its no longer a mystery why youre so worried about people judging you about being a bar regular.

The psychological term for that is “projectjon”

The South in America, or maybe England? I don’t know. Not that most of the Brits look “inbred” but I think of royalty being accused of inbreeding. What makes someone look inbred? The parents look like brother and sister? Maybe Utah? Or, Amish country? Hmmm?? Who even thinks about inbreeding now? It never occurs to me.

@ragingloli

I dont think its necessarily the South. Call ma crazy (or cynical) but i just have a hunch that we would be hearing the same observation pretty much regardlesd of where this individual lived.. If someone needs to find solace in a bar to counteract the ” horrors” of his everyday life its not the location thats likely the problem but the piint of view.

I’m not, myself, but my husband is, and everyone knows me and our son by extension. It’s more because of his activity with the local music scene than just being a bar rat, though. Most of the bars he’s known at aren’t even open unless there is a band playing.

Hey @Seek
How do you like having your location trash-talked.?

Seen any inbred kids hanging around your neighborhood lately?

:D

^^Her location? You aren’t calling Tampa Bay area the south are you?

Well, how much more South can you get than Florida?

But dont get too worked up about it. Im just kidding around. Im a little loopy from lack of sleep this past week. Tooth emergency. Severe. Not too conducive to restful sleep.

Back on subject, Yes, I am a regular at a bar if you consider once a week regular. Several of us go out every Tuesday and have a few.
We know the waitresses by name and they know us. We know some of the other patrons on a first name basis and most of the others on a nodding hello basis.
Only one of us has a regular brew that he gets on every occasion, the rest like to sample the varieties they bring in.
There are students, teachers, weather reporters, architects, blue collar workers, lawyers, physicists, biologists, builders, beer distributers, bikers, cyclists and a myriad of others who intermingle and have a pleasant evening sharing stories and brews.

I am not a regular at a bar, haven’t been for a long time. I don’t drink anymore.

But I was regular enough to know the staff at a few bars at various times between when I was 19 and when I was 30.

For me, it may feel like family, but it is a very dysfunctional family, where the only constant is booze, and the response to any difficulty in one’s life is to have another drink.

I don’t condemn anyone that is a regular at a bar. But life is not Cheers and @Buttonstc your uncle’s friends aren’t really friends beyond the doorstep.

@ragingloli “the south?” Fuck you~

@Buttonstc sorry, I meant to reference @Buffaloman

@zenvelo

Ha ha. Thats OK. But thanks for clearing that up. I was a bit puzzled but i figured…whatever :)

@ARE_you_kidding_me
I am so sorry.
I would have liked to be a bit more specific, but unfortunately, I do not know what city you live in. :D

My locals? They suuuuck. They smell bad, there’s almost nowhere to sit, and more than once I’ve had to literally go behind the bar and teach the bartenders how to make a drink.

I can’t speak to the patrons’ breeding, as I’m not interested enough to ask.

I go for the music.

@Buttonstc “The South” is more cultural than location. I’ll agree Tampa is right on the border of the South. Just a smidge north and you might as well be in Georgia. Tampa is full of Midwesterners, and the culture and accent reflect it, although the area also has quite a bit of generational Floridians (Crackers) as opposed to further south in the state.

It’s not a part of the country stereotyped for inbreeding like say KY or AL. No offense to any KY or AL jellies. I don’t think that really goes on much at all in America.

Interested to see what @Seek says.

Let me try this again:

I—-was
—just—kidding :)

There are a few married men who frequent the pub I go too. For the most part, they’re the first to leave. They usually stay for a couple hours and then go home to their wives, who think all of us at the bar are losers. The married guys put up with crap when they get home buzzed everyday and still keep coming back to the bar. It’s too bad the wives don’t just accept the fact that men like to watch a game and drink a few beers everyday.

Outside of certain areas most of the stereotypes about the south are true.

@JLeslie:

Depends on the location. Tampa? Not the South. Miami? Not the South. Gibsonton? Lakeland? Definitely the South.

Really, the further away from the coast you get, the more Southern the state becomes.

Lakeland is South? I’ve been there for the Frank Lloyd Wright tour at the Florida Southern college, but that’s about it.

Oh, yes. Meth labs as far as the eye can see.

Pasco starts to get southern as you go north. Even on the coast.

Lol. So meth labs delineate the South?

I grew up in Hudson. Hudson is pretty southern, but Dade City much more so.

It’s a gradient.

Hudson is getting pretty north. I was on the border in the Tarpon/Trinity area.

Hudtucky is as north as you get… It borders Hernando. Spring Hole Hill is on the other side, which is slightly nicer, if just as boring.

All the fat wives I know are bar regulars. How do you think they got so fat?~

And them fat wives meet their spouses at family reunions and dats why they kids inbret.

Lol.

Friends of mine, the parents are first cousins. I’m friends with the whole family. You would never guess. They look nothing alike.

And I look nothing like my brother.

Arkansas.
The OP must be from Arkansas.
“Inbred kids” hanging out in the bar was the clincher. Smoking the butts out of the peanut shells on the floor. ~ ~ ~

Rumor has it that my Great Grandparents were first cousins.
But they were from Illinois.
No doubt there was dowry involved or the families merging turf.

My husband was a regular at this little bar down the road from his work before he became ill last year. He told me about this woman who would bring her toddler in while she drank. The poor kid!

Crap. This means I’m the fat wife and our kids are inbred.

That’s OK, I’m the chick there with the toddler. Except I was the DD.

dwhat?

Designated driver. I like to make sure people get home safely, since I live in a fascist country that doesn’t allow neighborhood pubs to exist.

I live near a town of about 40,000 that has at least 60 bars, @Seek. Probably about ¼ – ⅓ of what it had in it’s heyday, but you can still park and walk to around 15 in one section of town.
Mostly tavern type places that were and are ‘neighborhood bars’.

Not everything is bad in the Midwest. lol

Our population is 3200 and we have 4 if you count the VFW, but they are all closed on Sundays because our county is dry that day. The VFW is two blocks from our home and the other three are just ½ mile away. They are all dive bars.

Closest thing I have is a Beef O Brady’s four miles away. The closest bar we go to is ten miles.

@ibstubro Now that I’m back in the Midwest I’m reminded how alcohol is such a part of the society here. Bunches of basements with bars and hard alcohol sold in the supermarkets (which I think is fine, but I think most states don’t allow it)).

It depends, @JLeslie.
I live near another town of about 20,000 that has maybe 10 bars.
The small town nearest me (1,000 +) doesn’t even have a bar in it.

I find that a lot of the towns in the Midwest are still influenced by the predilections of the original founders.
The town of 40,000 had a huge German population.
The town of 20,000 had a Southern Baptist tradition.

@ibstubro Definitely, I think we can go with some stereotypes. Irish, German, LOL, drinkers. Most of my friends in MI are Polish, they seem to drink pretty well also, but I don’t have that stereotype for the Polish. Those named will go out to drink. While other groups who still do drink, do it with dinner, or for a celebration.

The old saying: Irish wedding they worry about the alcohol. Jewish wedding they worry about the food. You could switch Jewish for Italian or Greek. While my experience is at the Baptist wedding, or any wedding where there are a lot of Evangelicals in the community, neither drink
nor food is blown out of the park, even when they have the money.

The Mid South was the first place that I lived that it was usual for wedding receptions to be just heavy appetizers. Luckily, the first one I went to a Jewish woman from my husband’s work, who was from the northeast, clued me in, or I would have missed eating enough to fill up. This wedding happened to be Catholic, but it still fit in with my Bible Belt experience regarding food. They did have an emphasis on the alcohol, having a long cocktail hour with zero food. I’ve never seen that before at a wedding. Drinking and no food, but they were Catholics from Louisiana.

I used to work with a Jordanian guy who told me, in reference to his wife, “before she was my wife she was my cousin. ” No dear, she will always be your cousin.

Even Mozart had the hots for his cousin.
Here is an excerpt from one of his love letters to her:
“Come for a bit or else I’ll shit. If you do, this high and mighty person will think you very kind, will give you a smack behind, will kiss your hands, my dear, shoot off a gun in the rear, embrace you warmly, mind, and wash your front and behind, pay you all his debts to the uttermost groat, and shoot off one with a rousing note, perhaps even let something drop from his boat.”

I was a regular at a nightclub on Friday and Saturday nights where we all danced to an amazing sound system. That is, for a year at age 42 until I remarried a year after starting the bar thang. I went there with a close friend who was also divorced.
I hated to give it up. I loved it. Immature outlook? I don’t know. I only know I loved and love to dance to loud music while drinking Margaritas. lol But, never again. Pathetic for an older woman to do that in my opinion especially when she’s not a size ten anymore.

@Aster I always say at least half the women in Zumba class are there, because their husband don’t take them dancing anymore.

I still love dance clubs too, I just worry about my hearing. I usually wear earplugs when I go, I just wish I had been doing it all along.

Do what you enjoy, @Aster.
I think dancing for the love a dancing is very apparent from dancing like a hoochie mamma.
Dancing for yourself instead of for the attention.

You may consider yourself too young for Sr. dances, but I’m sure they’d welcome you.
Just look out for the old farts. lol

this sort of dancing ?

@JLeslie maybe so but half the fun of dance clubs is dancing with men! Or, more than half. lol That is, when I was single which I am not!
@ibstubro no; I don’t consider myself too young for senior dances but we can’t see to drive past dark and we go to bed very early! Plus, he broke his femur. It’s ok; I’m used to staying home at night 365 days a year. lol

@Aster I love dancing with my husband, but I haven’t danced with other men in such a very long time. Not because my husband would care, but the circumstance hasn’t come up. I enjoy dance no matter what. I don’t care if it’s with men or not.

No chance of double dating with a couple that drives, @Aster?
Or have a night out on the town and call a taxi! :)

No. I wouldn’t like for my husband to drink everyday before coming home from work though. I wouldn’t want that to be my kids’ father either.

Exactly – I agree with @MollyMcGuire.

I was told a couple of decades ago that the Irish pubs in NY were segregated Catholic and Protestant with very little, if any, intermingling. Is that still true (was it true in the first place) or has it eased off as the tensions in Ireland have decreased?