A glimpse inside my head - look away, look away!

Damn, I hate bars.

In many respects this is a rational hate. I don't drink, I don't like to talk to people I don't know (or at least don't have any kind of connection to me), I don't smoke (though admittedly you can't smoke in most bars now anyway, so that's not so much of a problem - and besides, I don't actually generally mind being around smokers), and I don't like having to shout to engage in conversation. So, really, why the hell WOULD I like bars?

And yet, not liking bars makes me feel like a complete and utter loser. LOSER. Big L right on my forehead. Because everyone else there seems to be having a high old time, to be the life of the party, to have lots of people to talk to, and it's me, just me, who is the problem.

It's funny because tonight's abortive attempt at hanging out in bars with my classmates was making me feel old, and ugly, and boring, and old, and out of place, and old, and like a social misfit, and old. Did I mention old? But then I remembered that I have really NEVER liked bars, and have always felt out of place and stupid in them. So I think it's probably more that bars bring out my social anxieties, and right now, with this law school crowd of people at least, my social anxieties happen to center around being old, rather than that my age has anything to do with my social success.

I should think of age as making me wise, but instead, this society being what it is, it just makes me feel ugly. And dumb. And a loser hanger-on who has no friends because who would want to be friends with me?

(I should mention that in grad school I had lovely friends who are as much older than me as I am older than my classmates now. I feel bad for not being able to recognize then the weirdness they probably felt, although maybe I'm projecting that, and also I feel bad that I don't give some of my younger classmates the credit they deserve by refusing to believe that they now, like me back then, could actually consider someone 15 years older a true friend.)

What's especially dumb about this (my whole attitude tonight) is that 1) the youngest person in the group was clearly not thrilled to be at this bar, and bailed fairly soon after I did. So it's not at all about age. And I don't think of hir as a social loser - I just think of hir as someone who doesn't like bars. And 2) the people I'm with are actually NOT (for a change) all that much younger than I am - one is 25 and one is 26, so there's that, but one is 30 and the other two are of indeterminate ages I don't know for certain, but I believe well into their 30s. So it's not like I'm some kind of dinosaur in the nursery, and the problem here is clearly not about my age - it's about all the dumb social anxieties I carry about with me, and have since I was a teenager, and probably will until the grave.

(The other thing going on here, probably, is that I'm a dyed-in-the-wool introvert who has spent time around other people around the clock since Thursday morning - and I mean intensely interacting with people I don't know that well, nonstop - and having a minor crisis about my social ineptitude is a great mechanism for propelling me away from other people for a while. So this is all a bit mountain-out-of-a-molehill-ish. Kind of a shame, really, because I'd been doing so well up till now! I even met totally new people earlier today and we really hit it off and I enjoyed talking with them a lot. So to relapse in this way is a bit of a bummer, but I guess my minor social success this afternoon should remind me I'm not actually a hopeless social misfit, even though I feel like one sometimes.)

So yeah, that's how the evening's drawing to a close - with me feeling like a loser. What's funny is that loser is the word I keep coming back to, the one that really encapsulates how I see myself in these moments. What I don't know is what it is that a loser is actually losing, and what one is supposed to win and how, but the metaphor still works for me anyway. Is "loser" a universal thing? Is it everyone's word, or just mine? When you're feeling down about yourself, what is the label that you pin on yourself?

Comments

[EH]

I've always either been the youngest person in a group (usually RPG types) or the eldest (law school types). I married a man 11 years older, so I will always be the young one - albeit an older mother of a child.

But the bar thing: that transcends age. Not a loser.

I like the new emphasis on introvert as a person who needs time away from people to recharge batteries, vs. an extrovert needing time with people. I enjoy people, I like being social, but I have to have downtime. A bar (or a casino, or a show, or a movie) is so overstimulating for me that I have to withdraw from the world afterward. My poor husband doesn't get why I detest going to films - it's just too much.

In any case, I'm lucky that my husband and daughter seem to be the same way, and I do what I can to keep her social interactions balanced with quiet/bored time.

[Tenured Radical]

The bar thing certainly can transcend age. That said, I used to *love* to go to gay bars, and now I don't. It started when I realized I had asthma; then cigarettes were mostly banned from bars, and that didn't mater any more. What was it?

A couple ideas. I no longer think getting drunk, or even tipsy is fun (I don't sleep well & feel yucky the next day); picking up people for sex, and the mating dance around that, is not something I miss (I'm not sure I could gear myself up for it if I were single); and I am happier reading. Do you fit any of these categories?

Plus age *does* matter. In the past decade, I have realized how very precious time is -- not just in terms of being middle aged, but in weekly sense, where suddenly time can be ripped from you because someone else needs it (a kid, a mother, a partner, the department -- whatever.) So I don't really want to squander the time I have on superficial claptrap. It makes me impatient.

And I think it is just fine that the young do wish to squander their time that way.

[Dr. Crazy]

I was always the sort of person who liked to go to bars with *friends* - not with casual acquaintances and not to talk to people I don't know. This means that I still may enjoy a night out at a bar, but that is much less frequent because of age, because for the most part my friends typically don't want to go out to bars anymore because they have kids, pets, responsibilities, partners, etc. Also, I think I really consciously did see my 20s as a time when I was going to go out a ton and be wild, and now, well, that is kind of boring to me and I feel like I've gotten it out of my system. I'd much rather have people over or go do something out in the world that is more interesting than going out to a bar.

I guess all this is to say that I don't actually think there's anything wrong with feeling like you're not into the whole bar thing precisely because you've outgrown it or gotten too old for it. That doesn't make you a loser anymore than thinking you've outgrown any other activity does.

Nor does it make you a loser if you embrace that part of yourself that never liked bars in a way that you couldn't or didn't do when you were younger. One of the great things about getting older is that you don't need to go along with the crowd as much, that you have more freedom to choose how you spend your time.

And yes, loser is my word in those moments, too. Either that or weirdo :)

[Amanda]

I hear you. In grad school I had a group of friends with whom I'd regularly hang out in our campus pub (we even occasionally graded papers there), and we all loved the waitstaff and the jukebox and the Stilton fries and the awesome beer selection. But I haven't had that same bar experience since then, and my most recent venture into a bar only left me feeling horribly socially awkward and isolated. (And also kind of depressed because it was one of only a couple of gay bars in my area, and my feeling like I didn't fit in also made me feel like a failure as a queer person. Where are all the other bookish bar-shy opera-loving lesbians?)

[undine]

I hear you, too, but my take is more like Tenured Radical's. Think about all the times you've been really, really pressed for time over the past few years; you've written about some of them. I think that once you're used to that kind of time pressure when you either have to be around people or have to complete tasks, the idea of being in a bar where time seems to stand still and you can't recharge your introverted batteries just isn't as appealing.

[Another Damned Medievalist]

I hate bars, but I love pubs. The difference? Atmosphere and purpose. I never like the crowded weekend night atmosphere, but I can manage.

But for me, a pub is somewhere where you are there to see your friends, and you are maybe a regular. It's a place where you can bring your reading or knitting and sit with friends on a quiet afternoon, sipping a beer or glass of wine, or even a cup of tea or a soda. It's a place where you can go to drink with friends without worrying about skeevy people hitting on you. It's like a neutral living room where you can be around people without being with them if you don't want to (I sometimes go down to the local to grade and watch the Premiership games -- they bring me a tea, will make me beans on toast even though it's not on the menu, and if I stay long enough, bring me a beer).

I really miss my old pub in Seattle. But what's cool is that I'm still remembered there, and still have a button on the register for my tab, even though I haven't lived there for five years.

Bars don't have that. I don't like bars.

[David Schraub]

This post describes my views on bars exactly (from "I don't like drinking" to "but I feel like a social misfit when everyone else seems to be having a ball"), and I'm 25 years old (3L who went straight-through). So it strikes me as somewhat ageless.

[New Kid on the Hallway]

Thank you, all, for not telling me I'm a loser!

@David - I totally agree, the feeling isn't about age at all. But it was funny how when I got insecure and feeling crappy, I decided it was because of my age. That's just about my own current insecurities.

@ADM - I get the distinction, though I've never had a pub myself; the closest was a bar in Rural Utopia where we got burgers every weekend, but then, it was one of about three restaurants in town, so not quite the same thing. I think because I don't drink, coffeeshops are to me what the pub is to you.

@undine - true, although in this case, the time pressure wasn't really a factor; I was traveling with a group of people out of town, so there wasn't anything else I was going to do with the time, and I probably wouldn't have even ended up in the bar to begin with otherwise. But definitely the inability to recharge my introverted batteries was a big deal.

@Amanda - I have never in my life been able to meet people in a bar. It's one thing to go to one with people I already know, but I just can't meet people. So it sucks when that's an identifiable clear-cut way to meet the lesbians in your area! (I think you need to go to the opera more often. And bookstores. Not that I ever meet people in those places, either, but at least it's a more fun way to spend your time!)

@Dr. Crazy - yes, I generally have embraced my not-bar-liking self more than I did when I was younger. I think part of the issue here was being sort of captive, because I was traveling with a group of people and that's where we went, and it was a little difficult to break from the pack.

(Weirdo, huh? I like that! I've never called myself that, though.)

@Tenured Radical - yes, I think I fit all those categories! (I don't drink, I'm not looking to pick anyone up, and would be much happier reading!) Like you say, it's totally great that anyone, young or old, feels like spending their time that way, but it so doesn't interest me.

@EH - yes, the introversion is totally a huge part of this. I think the other problem was that I ended up at this bar with the group of people I'd been traveling with and spending all my time with for the previous 72 hours. I like them fine, but I don't know them that well, and by that point I felt like I'd used up a lot of my conversational ability. If I'd gone to the bar to meet up with them, having not seen them nonstop for 3 days, I think it would have gone much better than it did.