After you’ve frequented enough bars and hang-out joints you begin to realise they serve no useful purpose whatsoever.
They are not necessary.
They all have the black-top bar or bars that separate your money from their money and upon which they dump the alcoholic drinks you have just purchased in their own semi-circular alcohol footprints – all the better to slide them with and all the better to prove to you how worthless the stuff and the people drinking it are. If they could they would just pour it out on the surface of the bar and leave it for you to slurp up with your undisciplined lips. Saves on collecting, washing and stacking glasses for one thing.
All bars and hang-out joints are dimly lit for if anything ruins the illusion of physical attraction it is the overhead lightbulb of truth.
The toilets are always out back through a half-hinged door which opens out noisily, creakily to an unevenly tiled floor from which there branch exactly four further doors. Two of these are toilet doors. The other two will forever more remain mysterious and full of dark intent.
The men’s and women’s toilets are generally posted with confusing symbols, pictures, heiroglyphs, movie star profiles, foreign nouns or lithographs denoting to no one in particular which is which.
The toilets themselves are beyond the scope of this story. Suffice it to say they operate by their own rules and laws of design and hygiene, rules and laws that would make Mad Max shudder.
In my preferred world all bars and hang-out joints would be closed down and banned from ever reopening.
These dark and vacuous dens only exist because people in the general community cannot abide the thought of inviting people around to their place – to chat, to mingle, to sip a few drinks, to share biases, hatreds and fears and perhaps to laugh until dawn.
To invite people to your house or apartment means to take a chance. Many chances. And also do some work cleaning up both before and after. But think how much nicer the world would be if everyone spent an hour cleaning up their place every Wednesday through Saturday in the expectation of having someone over.
Even after all the bars and hang out joints have been closed down there still needs to be a central corralling area. I’m envisioning a gigantic glass dome, a kind of geodesic dating dome built in the middle of downtown, just with one single very large meeting and perusal room or lounge so everyone who is in the mood for taking someone back to their place can get to know them during a few minutes of small talk and can then head off unimpeded for a singularly individuated evening of intense focus and sharpened communication skills.
The great glass dome would have perhaps 300 seats scattered around, none of which is comfortable enough to sit in for any longer than, say, ten minutes. There is only one set of entry doors and a separate set of exit doors and you can only migrate in that general direction, from entrance to exit. You are not permitted to exit through the entry door and vice versa. Perhaps we will install travelators, like at the airport, just to keep people moving.
In the great dome all clique and exclusive groups, all similar-minded ensembles would be instantly exposed because there wouldn’t just be one set of, for example, hipsters or bikers or punks or mods or homies.
No.
You would see them everywhere. Like herds of sheep all descendant from the same magazine cover or advertising spread.
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