ElleDraper.com

Another cracking blog from one of my favourite writers - Alex Medina.

There are certain elements of twenty-somethinghood that are key staples. Graduating college. Getting a real job. But chief among them is hanging out with friends at the bar. Drinking, dancing and determined to make this the greatest decade. I have spent my time in plenty of drinking establishments. Proper pubs, hole-in-the-walls and large dance clubs. In all these places, I have noticed exactly how life is lived within bars.

During my life within bars, I develop super hero powers. Well technically, three skills become more developed. So, I’m less of a super hero and more like a blind or dumb person. If I had taken the ACT’s at a bar, I am sure that I would have gotten a full ride to Harvard.

Being at a bar is one of the few places I can do division with any real confidence or real speed. I can quickly look at the drink specials, add a tip and divide that into the amount of money I brought in about five seconds. Something about the bar makes my mind work like Rainman’s. Of course the drinks at the bar make me act like him.

At the bar I also develop the amazing ability to stick my foot in my mouth. The last time I was out, I was talking to this guy and was saying how one of his elderly costumers looked like his grandmother except the costumer was a bitch. I quickly said, “which we can assume you grandmother isn’t.” His response: “No, she’s dead” and continued his story. My friend Jacob was there and sot of looked at me and whispered “Awkward.”

But the bar is full of awkward moments. I’ve had to introduce myself three times to someone before I could remember his name and when I put his number in my phone it was still the wrong name. I only knew this because the next day my friend asked me if I got Ryan’s number and I asked “who?” Recently, I entered someone’s name as “Byrice,” which is more like a grocery list than his name.

The greatest thing about the bars, are the people I call Nightcons. These are people that are so outrageous you have to watch them throughout the night. In D.C., my friends and I would place bets (i.e. drinks) on Nightcons to see which one would do the most insane thing. I was out one night and my Nightcon was a heavy-set, heavily drunk lesbian. I first saw this Nightcon on the dance floor when she hiked up her pants through her open shirt without first attempting to block anybody’s view of of her actions. Innocent enough, until she then reached into her pants and readjusted her underwear. Her stomach vibrated like the archival footage of the man getting hit by a cannon ball. I had to share this with someone. When I attempted to point her out to Jacob, she had disappeared. I was at first worried that she had fallen through the dance floor because there was no one dancing where she had been standing. However, it was not her obscene readjustment that gave her Nightcon status. What made her a Nightcon was later that night I saw her cuddling with this other girl and while the other girl had her head in the nape in my Nightcon’s neck, the Nightcon had her head tilted back draining a long neck bottle into her mouth. That my friends, is Nightcon behavior.

In the end, the bars represent all the aspects of our twenty-somethinghood. We go out. We have fun with friends. And occasionally there is a man dividing drinks into $60, avoiding awkward moments, attempting to remember names and trying not to become a Nightcon.

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