How and how not to make friends at a bar

If there was a competition to find the best person to show their friends New York, I would probably enter. Part of why I moved to New York was based on the incredible days and weekends I spent visiting friends here and romanticizing all of the quintessential NY situations for months to come. It is an honor to curate an itinerary for the people I love. Whether I’m trying to convince them to move here or just show them a good time, I go crazy while planning.

I ended up having nights with out-of-town friends from three phases of my life this week: Thursday with a college friend, Friday with New Hampshire friends, and Saturday with Pittsburgh friends. In prepping for my college friend, Jackson, to visit, I spent part of one of my designated adderall days making an extraordinarily thorough brainstorming Google Doc. I am almost high off of recommending places for people. I actually took a long pause between writing this paragraph and the one before it because I was sending my friend Noor recs for her upcoming weekend in Boston. Meera says I should be a travel planner.

An important sector of planning is based around alcohol consumption. My friends visiting from Illinois, New Hampshire, and Pittsburgh — respectfully — do not have the same abundance and quality of drinking opportunities. My New Hampshire loves were looking for a really gay night, one that far surpasses those spent at important but occasionally depressing outposts like Breezeway and Doogie’s. Especially for them, I wanted to find places where we could dance. I wanted sweaty, packed places with people who take for granted how much easier it is to be gay here than anywhere else bopping to new Charli XCX instead of “Boom Clap.”

No matter how many parts of our day together cracks, my visitors will not care about it as much as I do simply because they are enjoying seeing this different world around them. A big part of it is the people: how they dress, what they talk about, and how they carry themselves. You’re most likely to go from observer to participant at a bar, especially at a sweaty, gay one. If I don’t leave a gay night out with at least one new Instagram follower I’ll never speak to again but life their posts until the day I die, then I failed.

The desire to dance sweatily led us to Playhouse on the weekend of NYU graduation, making an already talkative place even more lively. Finding a new friend for even a moment is so easy, connecting over a busy bar, a drag performance, or the perfect song. These tiny moments, as big as a group to follow around or as small as a smile, are what can make a New York — or any — night, a way to say You belong here.

I’m not saying anything new; we all know this and live this. I’ve never heard someone say Making friends as an adult is a piece of cake! I hope I do not sound too conceited in saying that I am great at making friends (keeping them…not as much). I’ve had an easy time meeting people in New York only because I’m lucky enough that people from all phases of my life live here, too. Almost 100% of my friends here are either people I already knew or those I met through people I already knew.

Even for someone as loud and energetic as I am, making friends in New Hampshire was a massive challenge. The ones I have are some of the most incredible people I met, but I either met them at work or through work friends. New Hampshire makes it hard to make friends because there aren’t a ton of young people (or people, for that matter) and many of them are content within their preexisting circles. There is not as much of a culture of mixing friend groups at bars as there is in larger cities.

We need spaces to meet other people regardless of background, occupation, or interests. Without enough places to make friends or at least develop personal lore, we dive deeper into our mind dungeons or explore the ones our significant other has (or wish we could be doing that with someone). I’ve talked here before about how a portion of people who marry or reproduce young do so because they are bored. New Yorkers don’t do that as much because there’s more happening around them, including within the seemingly endless bars around us.

Am I the right person to talk about this with? Maybe not. I’ve made two friends at bars that became actual friends, one of whom moved away and the other I’ve been terrible at making a plan with. But if not lasting connections, I can certainly discuss how to make a friend for a night. I have two anecdotes from this week to share: first, what to do and second, what not to do.

Early last week I went out for drinks in the West Village with my friend Megan. For our second location, we ended up at Art Bar. Coincidentally, this is a favorite of my friend Jordan, the actual friend I made at a bar that I’ve been terrible at planning with. I thought of her while I was here, and it’s one of my favorite bars, too. It’s just reliable. There’s a lot of seating, a big food/drink menu, and kind bartenders. (Off topic: I feel like every other sentence this entry has contained a series. This makes me feel frustrated, confused, and robotic.)

We sat at the bar instead of a table, which can be the best way to meet someone and have a real conversation with them instead of a drunken girl’s bathroom compliment session. Megan and I sat next to a girl (I’ll call her Antenna) sitting alone with an awesome phone case: an oversized, retro cellphone with fake buttons and an antenna. I leaned over to Antenna to compliment her phone case, which Megan and I started gushing over. She was excited to tell us that she bought it for under $10 on Amazon, and the three of us talked about phone cases for a few minutes.

The topic sounds very mundane. It is, but mundane doesn’t have to be bad all the time. Sometimes it’s refreshing to talk to a stranger about something small. I think that’s part of what building community is all about. We also picked the right stranger. We chatted with Antenna intermittently through the night, learning about her job, interests, and boy drama. This is always the best, dumping vulnerable but harmless info, especially when it’s about romance. She told us about a recent relationship with a married man and her current trysts with a guy in his late 40s (Antenna’s a little older than me but not old enough where that sounds normal).

This gossip would be juicy from a friend, but it’s so fun when it’s from someone you don’t know. She was really nice, complimenting us and following us on Instagram. All three of us were tipsy, but no one was sloshed. She eventually left to meet up with the aforementioned man approaching 50, and appeared 10 minutes later because she thought she lost her airpods (which she messaged me the next day saying she found them in a weird pocket. We’ve all been there).

I enjoyed this interaction because it felt so comfortable. This is a girl, after learning more about her, I probably would never connect with elsewhere. She was willing to talk about whatever, but was content to flow in and out of talking to us. I didn’t feel like I was babysitting a drunk person, just having a drive-by bond with someone else happy to have the same thing.

A few days later, I had a very different bar interaction. It’s Thursday, and I’m having an awesome night reuniting with Jackson, who I haven’t seen since graduating. We’re at a bar in Williamsburg I like that’s rambunctious on the weekend and cozy on weeknights. Jackson and I are sitting at a semicircle booth with my neighborhood friends Ria and Anaïs, who also went to BU, sipping our beverages and laughing loudly. It was a great night.

Maybe the shape and size of the booth is what drew some guy over to our area. I’ll call him Palma. It is immediately clear that Palma is extremely drunk. He comes over to us and says he’s looking for his friend then asks to sit with us. I do not know this person. He’s gotta be in his mid to late 20s and looks like a harmless, probably nerdy guy. He sits down.

All four of us are not in the mood for this interaction, but we all deal with discomfort differently. The girls, unsurprisingly, silently stare at him, thinking that will make him leave. Jackson and I are of the school of thought that if we give him a little, he’ll go away. I can’t imagine just telling someone No, get lost right out the gate, but maybe it would have been better to say a kinder version of that. I think I fear rejecting random people (mostly men) in a closed space because I think it will prevent what could be a scary confrontation.

I’m calling Palma by that name because his shirt says Palma, Mallorca on it. In case your European beach geography is lacking, Palma is a city in Mallorca, an island off the coast of Spain. One of my best friends goes there every year, so I decided to go with a harmless question: Have you been to Mallorca before? He started answering but kept going off track. He was immediately getting very physical, especially with Jackson who was sitting next to him, just falling over and leaning in too close while talking. Jackson immediately bristled and told him in the kindest tone to scooch away.

I was really frustrated that this guy was sitting here. I felt sort of bad for him because he seemed like he was too drunk to be wandering alone. He also was not trying to flirt with any of us and clearly just wanted someone to talk to. However, I did not like that he decided to sit and stay seated with us. Palma could feel all of our glares toward him and asked Do you guys hate me? How do you answer that question? Obviously we did not hate him, but none of us asked him to be over here. How far can compassion go?

He asked the same question multiple times throughout our time with him, stopping himself mid-sentence sometimes to say something like I feel like you guys hate me. The more he said it, the more I agreed within. I had a hard time towing the line on how to speak to Palma politely but not inviting him to stay. Typing this out, I’m thinking Wow! So much trouble could be saved if one of us just said ‘No’ when he asked to sit with us. But that’s just not the kind of person any of the four of us are, either obliging or choosing silence.

Palma could barely stay on topic but tried. He would say crazy things. He showed us pictures of his bike he used to traverse the island and later said it cost $20k. He kept stopping himself to say something insecure, apologizing for being annoying or saying something self-deprecating in the middle of a thought. When he said a few times how “crazy” Mallorca is, I asked him What’s the craziest place you’ve ever been? I thought this would be a great question to ask a drunk person, but instead he said Why are you interrogating me so much? Throughout this whole interaction, I’m laughing, but especially at this remark. What do you want me to do instead, dude? Sit in silence? Our group was definitely giving mixed signals, as we had two members with Resting B*tch Face and two with Resting Kind Face (but all four of us wanted him gone).

Jackson got up to use the bathroom, requiring Palma to slide out of the booth for a moment. Unfortunately, he sat back down and started talking more to the three of us. He asked us for our names, introduced himself, and asked us where we were from three times each. He kept scooching in closer and getting touchy with everyone. Not in a sexual way, just in a drunk person who forgets personal space exists way.

Palma told us he barely goes out and that he lives nearby in one of those incredible apartments near Domino Park. We asked what he does in his spare time, and he said I cry a lot then talks about how dudes should cry more. Your hobby is crying? You really must be blacking out. Not even a True Cryer would say that’s their main interest, they’d choose something like listening to Mitski.

Upon Jackson’s return, it’s already been over ten minutes and Palma clearly is showing no signs of leaving. His phone was facing up on the table, and his friend had called and texted him multiple times looking for him. We said a few times You should go find your friend, but he said he’d talk to them in a bit. I was so frustrated with this guy. Wasting my time dealing with this person. Were we not overt enough in telling him he needs to leave? We all go one-by-one closing our tabs and decide to head out. Jackson and I wait by the bar and seethe.

At the end, I’m at the table again with Anaïs and Palma. I don’t remember what self-deprecating comment or question he uttered, but I finally burst and told him he had been creepy all night. I told him he kept getting in people’s personal space, repeated questions multiple times, and kept asking if we hated him. He was floored: Wait, are you being serious right now? I told him he seemed like a kind person that just got way too drunk, which happens to all of us, so I wanted to let him know as a service that how he was conducting himself was driving us away. I asked him if he was blacking out and, like a true blackout-er, scoffed and said no.

I probably sounded like a project manager, assertive with a hint of bubbliness, telling him we never asked him to sit with us and that he overstayed his welcome. Palma was completely dumbfounded, saying he would never try to be creepy and that he couldn’t believe I was saying this to him. I was telling him all of this because I could tell he had no idea how much of a weirdo he was being. Anaïs, to my surprise, consoled him for a moment after I left. Ria and Jackson left a minute or two before I did, and I was overflowing with rage. I even told the bouncer to watch out for this guy because he’s clearly too drunk, as if the bouncer would do anything.

Anaïs came out and we walked to the train station. She was more sympathetic to him because of how clearly innocuous he was underneath his intoxication. I honestly needed 30 minutes to fully cool down. Who would have the audacity to stay somewhere they didn’t feel welcome and kept saying how they felt that way? I wonder if his friend ever found him. I wonder if Palma remembers anything about interacting with us.

I think if he was sober, this conversation would go in a completely different direction and could have actually been pleasant to make a new friend. But once someone gets way too deep into someone’s personal space and can’t fix themself, I can’t get on board. I was trying to think of how I could have gotten through this conversation with him leaving. I really don’t know how to be completely cold to someone that’s sitting right next to me. It’s an instinctual safety thing more than a natural hope to make a friend.

I’m a pretty physical person with my friends, but I cannot stand people that break the personal space bubble too fast, especially men. Meera, my friend Ryan, and I went to see Shygirl this weekend at Elsewhere, and the concert etiquette was atrocious. Seemingly endless people pushed us aside to move throughout the venue, and only two of them said something resembling an Excuse me! So many (probably drugged-out) concertgoers had no concept of personal space, dancing and aggressively making out while bumping into everyone around them.

I hate feeling small. The secret to a good interaction with a random person is having enough space for it. My interaction with Antenna was lovely partly because of how much space she gave us and how we spoke to each other; meeting Palma was so terrible because he physically and verbally stayed in a conversation that didn’t want him.

Both of these people wanted connection, as we all do, and I wish our Loneliness Epidemic society made it much easier. It also sucks that the majority of connection opportunities come with substances. It’s much easier to find a lasting friendship with someone you share an activity with, but those require having an interest, time, and usually money. This week, I’ve been thinking more about wanting to be less of a hater and more interested in learning about more things in a deeper way than what a news article provides. This feels like it sometimes connects to how I flourish in low-lift relationships, from a night with friends only here for the day or a small conversation at a bar. Does this show that I’m good at fostering community or bad at investing in relationships that matter? Maybe both.