in public.

most of the people I get along best with these days are the people I run into sitting alone at a bar I also intended to go sit alone at. they're people who are totally unoffended by something like saying hello and then sitting a few seats apart from each other, checking our phones and talking intermittently. eventually we'll both get a cigarette, come back in for a shot, and then it's constant chatter from there.


some other things...

Public fan of video games or wrestling. I haven't watched wrestling in over a decade (I flirted with getting back in during this past Wrestlemania but I only watched the following two RAWs and fell off) but I feel like if you can openly enjoy talking about 90s wrestling or how bad it is now, you're not someone with your guard up all the time.

Hip-hop fan. Spent two hours putting a fellow bartender on to beat tapes the other day while he batched cocktails. One of those dudes that likes good shit but doesn't do a lot of digging; didn't know Oh No was Madlib's brother or that his cousin Kankick exists. I always have fun talking rap, especially now that I don't really listen to music that much so it has a nostalgic feel for me and sparks some of those juices from my critic days.

Speaking of which, bartender. Former or current. Anyone with experience as a bartender, especially if they've worked in any sort of craft cocktail environment, is immediately up my alley. A) I know you know how to handle your liquor (unlike servers who can be THEEEEE WORST) B) I know you know how to talk about your liquor. Like with hip-hop, I can talk for hours though I take the student's seat most of the time since I've only been seriously in the game about a year.

Smoker. Sorry, I smoke, and if you don't, you're generally an asshole about me smoking (which I get, but I'm doing it so give me a break) and it cuts through whatever good vibes are going on.

Looping back around, not clingy. People often accuse me of leaving them alone at a place, but 95% of the time I hadn't intended on seeing them at that place. I don't consider it ditching/leaving someone if I hadn't planned on meeting them in the first place and my being there wasn't the reason they originally went there.

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"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz