I had a mental breakdown.
The kind that involves a lot of collateral damage. Family members stop speaking to you. Friends treat you like you might at any moment start swinging from the rafters, wearing your underwear on your head while singing Kumbayaa. Other friends condemn you and threaten to stop being your friend all together. And they do.
When I got out of hospital ( it was that kind of break down)I did some demolition work on the main structures of my life. I quit my job, gave up my house. Cried a lot. And so on. I took a job as a bar tender to tide me over. I worked as one before, in my drugged up early twenties. Now I was regressing.Only minus the drugs. I find serving drunk people to be the best place to make observations on human behaviour. People are less inhibited when drunk, they display their mental ticks loudly (if with a slight slur) for all to see. Freud would have done great work if he gave up on the couch and gave his patients a bottle of whiskey instead, just to see what spewed from their mouths (other then vomit) when they had less ability to censor themselves. This is the countdown on the top three things a drunk will teach you.
1.How to be heard when nobodies listening.
This happens whenever somebody get works up over something. They don't need to be wasted. Do a social experiment yourself next time you're in a group, especially if the group includes at least one of the more obnoxious extrovert types. Dangle a hot topic, something everybody has a strong opinion about. Abortion, war, religion, Oreo Mcflurry's. And watch as people get loud. Nobody wins these debates, because nobody is listening to anybody else. Neck veins bulge, voices get raised, it becomes a competition of who can sound the most like a total twat while bellowing the loudest. Ever seen chimps get worked up at each other? Theres a lot of screeching and hooting and jumping around, but nothing is ever achieved. All the sound and the fury, signifying nothing.
Generally the best thing you can do in this situation is ignore them altogether. You're not going to change anybodies mind. Its a waste of energy. Don't even try. But on the off chance you do feel the need to say something, and you've thought it through and you're not just trying to run your mouth and be a smart ass, then what I've found is the best thing to do is to become quieter.
Body language is important here. Lean back so everybody has to lean in to hear what you say. Talk softer, so they have to crane in and pay attention. Do not be baited into raising your voice. This is the the law of the jungle and the bar room, the louder you speak, the louder will everybody else. The less they'll listen. So don't do that.
When everybody speaks louder, you speak softer. Its simple, but try to keep something else in mind;
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2.Everybody wants your validation. All of them. All the time.
In a bar situation, as in the work situation, or in the school yard situation, egos jostle against one another like a pack of wolves at a kill. Nobody wins the ego game because its based on fear. When people think with their egos they make stupid plays to satisfy it. And to satisfy it, they need you. The ego's ultimate fear is that it is meaningless, that nobody cares. It needs you to care. It gets fed by signs that it matters, that it effects others. That it effects you. If somebody tries to intimidate and succeeds, you feed their ego. If somebody bullies you and you become defensive or cowed, you've fed their ego. If somebody tries to impress you and succeeds, if they bait you and take the bait, if they're obnoxious and you pay them any attention at all....well you're nothing but fodder for somebody else's insecurity complex, probably your own.
This is what happens when somebody loudly declares how much their new car costs. Or quotes some statistic about health care you're pretty sure is wrong. Or tells you how smart you are while staring at your boobs. Or tells you how stupid you are while while wearing sunglasses indoors and getting XXX tattooed on the back of their neck. These things have nothing to do with you. Don't be so narcissistic as to think they do. This is somebody else's fear of not being accepted, not being recognized, not being important, or not getting laid.
How do you handle it? Smile. Be nice. Speak quietly and to the point. Acknowledge the ego, its all they want. And if the ego is making them be a dick, ignore them. They do not exist. They never have. They are not important in anyway. Never reward it by responding any more then you have to.
3. Everybody wants to connect.
There's a guy that comes into the bar every morning. We all know him by name, and what he drinks. We drink shots with him and listen to his stories. Every bar tender probably has more then one of these customers. They're loners, or at least they come in alone. They sit at the bar by themselves, sometimes for hours. Eventually they will strike up a conversation with other clientele. People they've never met before. In this guys case he will end up paying for the drinks of everybody at the bar.
This sounds sad, but its not. Its exactly what happens every time you accept a request on Facebook from somebody you haven't spoken to in ten years. Or when you string somebody along whose interested in you, even though you have no intention of being serious with them. We ache to connect with others, and when a connection is made, it has to be really messed up before we'll break it off
Be kind. To yourself and to others. We all want the same thing, for somebody else to see us, to recognize us, to know we exist. Be easy with this kind of recognition of others. Give it freely, it costs you nothing.
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