At this point in my undergraduate career, I have been to all the bars in London. Truthfully, I have failed to visit any of the clubs, and I have not been to Downtown Kathy Brown’s, as I am too young to be attending retro nights. Still, I feel as though I have seen enough of the London bars to share my experiences and the lessons I’ve learned in them.
1. If you go to a popular bar after nine o’clock, you will wait in an hour long line. My friend who moved to London from Markham for teacher’s college continues to be astounded by this. The places are not over capacity, and yet you are made to wait time and time again. Perhaps bar managers think that long lines suggest an air of exclusivity. In reality, if the patrons continue to wait all that happens is that guys get ready to pick fights, and girls complain about how badly the need to use the washroom. (Or vice versa, depending on your friend group.)
2. The older you get, the earlier you will want to leave. The exception to this rule is if you go to a bar that also offers food, namely, chicken wings or poutine. Then you will see groups of fourth years stabbing furiously at family size poutines with gravy covered forks.
3. You friends’ stories will cease to surprise you, but what you see when you go out yourself will continue to. You will turn to your friends in horror and say, “That girl went out wearing nothing but a strapless bra! Do girls not wear shirts to the bar any more?!”
4. You will not notice what songs are played. A girl I stood in line recently stated that no one ever remembers the songs they hear when they go out. While I don’t share her level of ignorance — I can distinctly remember every time I’ve heard “I Love It” and “99 Problems” at the bar — for the most part I agree. The night is not made by the music. Rather, it’s made by the people and the atmosphere. Perhaps that is a lesson to the bars who make a point of hiring the highest profile in-house DJs.
5. The lines for pizza and shawarma will be as long as the lines for the bar. At this point, I go home to make myself soup and tea, and sit in bed while I listen to Bruce Springsteen.
6. You will start to go to the same bars, with the same people, on the same nights. And unlike if you were frequenting the same restaurant and continually ordering the same dish, this will never seen strange or sad.
7. You will start to wear the same outfits every time you go out, or some variation on the theme.
8. Alternatively, your outfits will just continue to get stranger. In recent weeks, I’ve taken to wearing what my friends call aggressive jewellery — you know, spiked necklaces and elephant pendants. Now I can’t go out unless I’m wearing at least a giant ring or cuff bracelet. Don’t worry though, I’m avoiding aggressive footwear. I only wore Doc Marten’s to the bar once.
9. You will start to feel older. No longer will you be able to drink straight vodka and still wake up in time for the Saturday morning cartoons. You will ask someone how old they are, and when they say they’re eighteen because they got in with a great fake ID, you will feel horrified, like you’re corrupting the children. You will also have a harder time convincing those you encounter how older you are. When a nineteen year old I was talking to in line didn’t believe I was in fourth year I said, “I’m working on a thesis and thinking about grad school.” He stopped asking questions after that.
10. You will no longer want to buy shots of Prairie Fire for your friends’ birthdays, because you know you will have to do a shot with them, and that shit burns. For most of us, tequila is challenging enough.
11. You will become less tolerant of the actions of the people around you. At one point I humoured the guys who approached me, but now when they ask me to dance, I simply say, “No thank you,” and I turn back to my friends. I’ve yet to decide whether that’s a positive thing.
12. If there is a western themed bar in your area, you will stand proudly with those who have or have not rode the mechanical bull. Before you ask, I did not ride the mechanical bull when I was at Cowboys. Sorry Erica, but that’s just not going to happen!
13. You will place increasing distance between yourself, and the drunk people around you, and the memory of yourself in their position. I must say, that makes me a bit sad. While I am glad that my disastrous nights are (hopefully) behind me, I think we should all remember the good and the bad times we had so we can learn from them, and show some understanding when others end up in the same situation. Let the one who hasn’t had a rough night at the bar cast the first stone.
14. You will get to a point when you think you never again want to see the bar that was once your favourite. You will laugh to think of your Saturday night ritual, and all the times you got to the bar just as the sun set to avoid a line in winter.
15. Someday you’ll start to miss that place and all the times you had there. Ask your parents about their times at Ceeps or The Brunswick. While they may not feel the need to return at Homecoming, they probably miss that crazy old place.
Song of the Day: Atlantic City by Bruce Springsteen
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