We're Taking Over Your Bars, Men. XO, Women
Photo credit: The Smithsonian Institute, Flickr
Hey, Scottish dudes! How you doin’? It’s American women.
We saw that new study you guys commissioned on yourselves using public money—the one in which researchers asked you about your pub-going. Apparently scientists were worried about you drinking too much in your middle age, so they grabbed a few of you and chatted it up.
It’s a tiny little study, which is sort of funny. Twenty-two fellas, total? Did the scientists just hit their locals and start asking questions?
But your scientist buddies research people found out something interesting; pubs might be good for you guys! “Men regarded drinking pints of beer in the pub together as an ‘act of friendship’ and this functioned as a hegemonically appropriate way to communicate with and support each other,” the results indicated.
Translation: You’re drinking too much, but it’s good for your mental health.
You know what’s missing from this article about you guys? A mention of women. The ladies. The gals. The birds.
So while we’re on the topic—since women didn’t make the cut in this study, and in fact we rarely see studies stateside about how drinking in moderation at bars is good for women’s mental health—we’re gonna take it upon ourselves to hold forth, here, for a second:
We love bars.
We love every sort of bar. The horseshoe-styled bar, the dive bar, the gastropub, the sunken bar—we love them all. We love to play pool at them, and beat you. We love to drink whiskey, alone, at the bar with a magazine. Sometimes we miss our subway stops and end up in a different borough than we meant to land in, and maybe we find ourselves in a strange Polish enclave drinking Champagne from a can—Champagne that smells like Debbie Gibson's Electric Youth perfume from the 80s. Sometimes we befriend you gents, or other ladies, or sometimes we make out with them, or you. And sometimes we want to keep blissfully to ourselves.
Bars have a magic. When the soundtrack is right—say, Pixies into Cocteau Twins into Galaxie 500 into Jay Z—and the bartender is sweet, bars are foxy places. They are electric and just dangerous enough in the way a night out dancing is both of those things.
Ladies love bars, too. So maybe next time you’ll do a 22-person study on whether bars are good for women’s mental health, because hell, yes, we’re curious. Maybe you already have; we’re unfortunately accustomed to seeing articles more like this one. (And of course there’s validity to drinking-related health concerns.) But what of that instant camaraderie and sweet, sweet solitude? That’s gotta be worth something.
Today marks the anniversary of the start of Prohibition, and the thought of being without our favorite watering holes just—frankly—makes us want some bourbon.
We love the bar, you guys. So save us a seat.
Xoxo,
Women
[via The Scotsman]
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