How many of you guys frequent bars?

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Tis_Bearself said:
Bars in most places in USA have become non-smoking due to local ordinances. Smokers usually have to go outside on a patio.
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It was often a case of inside the city limits versus outside the city limits for us, but that may have changed. Also the fancyness of the establishment.
 
I don’t get this attitude at all. “Oh, sure, I’ll go to a bar, but I wouldn’t date anyone I meet there.” Why on earth not? If you’re at a bar in the first place, presumably you don’t think everyone in a bar is per se undateable garbage, because then that would apply to you too.

If you think it’s fine for you to hang out in a bar and have a few drinks with friends, why couldn’t a perfectly nice girl be doing the same thing?
 
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I have gone to the bar on occasion (Karaoke night).

They say you should seek friends in places where you are doing the things you love. For example, make friends at bridge club, or at a board game club, or at a church function and you know you’ll have a friend who likes bridge, board games or church.

Make a friend at the bar and you could be meeting a friend who loves karaoke, or you could be making a friend whose priority is drinking and partying and all that goes along with such a lifestyle.

Can you meet decent people at the bar? Sure. I go for the karaokes! LOL! But is it an easy task? No. There are MUCH better places to meet people IMHO.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
The “pub” in UK tends to be a gathering place for locals. Pubs are frequented by local people who usually live within walking distance and are going to be in there several evenings a week to hang out with their friends and neighbors and chat. People tend to go to the same one, or maybe the same one or two, on a regular basis, sometimes for years. A lot of them also serve food so you can spend a couple hours there drinking and eating. In US, the closest equivalent is the “old man’s bar” where retirees will be sitting in there passing the time, or maybe some of the off-the-beaten-path locals-only establishments where you kinda have to know someone and know where the bar is to even find it. Outsiders or anybody who’s disruptive of the atmosphere are generally not welcome.

The “bar” in USA is usually designed to draw a crowd of different people, many of whom will drive there for a specific reason (craft beer, a special event night, a band playing etc.) and be more interested in meeting and mingling with new people and/or getting drunk and/or dancing or grooving to the band, than with sitting around chatting to a friend for 3 hours over a pint. In USA, people who want to have long conversations will more likely go to a coffee house or a diner. Bars are often loud so you can’t really talk in there anyway. People will stay for a while, drink, dance whatever then go someplace else. The food selection is usually lacking unless it’s a “gastropub” in which case it’s more like a restaurant, it’s probably expensive, and you’re kind of expected to eat and get out and not take up a table for 3 hours discussing philosophy. It’s USA, everybody is in a rush, there isn’t much loyalty to a particular bar. If a better one opens up a mile away, everybody will drive there. It’s also not part of the fabric of daily life for most US people nowadays. If you’re sitting around a bar several nights out of the week and you’re not retired or a disabled veteran or something, people tend to think there is something wrong with you or you have an alcohol problem. In the UK it would be regarded as more normal.
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In the U.S., at least to my knowledge, the word “bar” usually refers to the first type of place, where you sit right at the “bar” and get served drinks.

The second type of place, where there might be a DJ or a live band, and there’s likely to be seats and tables, we typically call a “club” or “nightclub.”
 
Bars here in my region of Canada generally refer to a place where you can get a meal, sit and watch the game or karaoke, there is a place where you can sit at the actual bar and visit with folks you know or you can grab a table and sit with friends.

It’s definitely not a nightclub type environment.

Edited to Add: As we don’t HAVE nightclubs our bars are also where the drug crowd meet and the party crowd meet and after 9PM it often turns into a place decent people just don’t want to be in all honesty. Thankfully karaoke is usually 6-9. 😛
 
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Here in BC, even patios are non-smoking zones. Smokers have to go out on to the street at least a couple meters from the entrance. Good riddance I say.
 
I can’t speak for men, but as a female, most single men I meet at a bar are out for one thing and one thing only, and it’s not a healthy relationship.

More often I would see someone I already knew a little bit from somewhere else at a bar and we could continue getting to know each other there, but it wasn’t a case of meeting for the first time ever in a bar.

I’m sure there are exceptions and people who have had 50-year marriages with a person they met at a bar, especially if the bar is more the “pub” or “neighborhood” type variety and less the “singles meat market” type variety. I just found it a dead end myself, personally. Most men I dated, I met through my work or my leisure time interests.
 
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Same here, while these days I would probably not look for my future wife there, I have met some really good Christian people there. My friend and i used to run a security event company and i used to play in bands so spent a lot of time in em.

I have made a really good friend, she was a bartender. Very sweet girl and Christian with good morals. She has always been there for me e through some rough times. She is one of the reasons i am still here today/was able to keep it all together.
 
signit said:
In the U.S., at least to my knowledge, the word “bar” usually refers to the first type of place, where you sit right at the “bar” and get served drinks.

The second type of place, where there might be a DJ or a live band, and there’s likely to be seats and tables, we typically call a “club” or “nightclub.”
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it may be a regional thing, but I have probably a dozen friends who’ve worked in bars, a hundred friends in “bar bands” and like I said have likely been in 100+ bars all over the US and Europe since I was 18, and many, many bars in US are called: “Bars”, regardless of whether they have a band, a DJ, a dance floor, tables, or what.

A “club” is often a bar that is trying to give off some impression of being classier than a plain ol’ bar. It might have a dress code or cater to people who want to feel like they are special. It’s the equivalent of a “shoppe” or a “boutique” rather than a store.
 
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I mean, I get that it might not be the first place to look if you’re looking for a real relationship as opposed to a hookup. I just don’t like it when people phrase it like, “ugh, I’d never date someone I met in a bar.” as though being in a bar means the other person is by definition some gross sleaze, because the speaker never seems to apply that standard to themselves.

Might be a little biased because I met the wife in a bar…😛
 
Sure. Bars and pubs all have different vibes. I live in a major city, and there are parts of the city where the bars are known for being wild, crazy places where 21 year olds do shots and dance all night. There are other places known for catering to the 30-40 something crowd that tend to be much more about relaxing with a few drinks and chatting.
 
Often people who are going “ugh” have had bad experiences with people they met in a bar.

Mentally reviewing the men I met for the first time in bars, I am in the “ugh” group.

I’m glad you were able to find a gem there though.
 
Yup. The men I’ve met in bars have been aggressive, rude, disrespectful and looking for only one thing. The men I’ve come to the bar WITH have been fine. Haha.

The ‘Ugh’ is definitely a reaction born of bad experiences.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I’m glad you were able to find a gem there though.
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I think it worked out for us because I wasn’t there looking for women specifically. I was just there hanging out with a friend, she was doing the same, struck up a conversation, etc. But if I’d dismissed the whole thing with “gross, we’re in a bar, I can’t ask for her number” my life would be very different. Glad I didn’t do that.

I get that this probably feels slightly different for women though. Mostly it just always sounds weird to me because it seems like the person saying “ugh” is judging the other person for being in a place that they’re also in. Feels hypocritical.
 
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Maybe an analogy will help you understand?

It’s like going into a cornfield to look for a pea. You like the corn, it’s pretty and flashy and interesting but is there going to be a pea in the cornfield? Probably not.

People go to bars for all kinds of different reasons so it IS possible to meet people who are like-minded IN a bar. However, it’s a lot harder to judge for what reason other people are there. Maybe you are there to hang out with your girlfriends and sing some karaoke but maybe everyone else is there to get drunk and find a hookup… how can you tell the difference?

Generally, you can’t. It’s possible though, I don’t deny that! But it seems there are far easier places to meet someone who will be compatible.
 
No, I get what you’re saying. I think it might be better to say “I’d be hesitant to meet someone in a bar.” vice “I’d never meet someone in a bar”. That’s all I’m saying. Having a hard and fast rule seems silly.
 
I’ve been to neighborhood bars (what might be called pubs in the UK) and upscale bars and everything in between and spent too much money in all of them.

And I probably haven’t set foot in a bar more than six or seven times since I got married about 25 years ago. Nowadays I think I’d be bored. There’s too much other stuff I’d rather be doing.

I never met anyone in a bar that became a friend. As a matter of fact, for a while I lived alone in a city where I had very few friends. Once in a while I’d go to the neighborhood bars just to be around people, and one day I realized that all the people who were sitting around, talking, watching sports, weren’t really friends with one another. It was kind of depressing, but also very liberating because I realized I wasn’t missing anything at all by not being there. I never went back, and pretty much stayed out of bars since then.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
The “pub” in UK tends to be a gathering place for locals. Pubs are frequented by local people who usually live within walking distance and are going to be in there several evenings a week to hang out with their friends and neighbors and chat. People tend to go to the same one, or maybe the same one or two, on a regular basis, sometimes for years. A lot of them also serve food so you can spend a couple hours there drinking and eating.
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I live in the US (Midwest) and we actually have a bar much like this in our small town neighborhood. My husband and I live within walking distance and we eat dinner there about once a week.
 
I’ve never once met a religious person at a bar. While in theory I could, it just isn’t likely.
 
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