As a 28-year old, I never understood the appeal of a pub as a meeting place. I think my main issue is that in loud places I just cannot for the life of me understand what is being said. I've had my hearing tested and it's absolutely fine, better than it should be at my age actually, and yet it's as if my ability to decode human speech goes to zero as soon as I'm in a loud environment, especially if there's sport events playing on the TV as well. I end up sitting there and nodding to conversations because I genuinely have no idea what people are saying. And yet people have group meetings and hold entire conversations surrounded by what seems like just an impenetrable wall of noise. Anyone else with the same problem?
You are most likely unfamiliar with what a "local" bar feels like. A local bar feels like a restaurant, one where you can hear others at the table: you go to it to talk with others not to get boozed or as a venue.
When you enter a busy local, the predominant sound is the hubub of voices. If there is music, it's volume should be below that (no amplified speakers throughout).
The issue is that many modern sports or night bars in urban areas often have loud speakers and you have to shout.
The type of bar the article is talking about is uncommon in some countries or cities. When you find it, you might not be comfortable with the feel of it (e.g. older patrons that seem like a clique); you often need to understand locals before you could know you are very welcome.
I mean, I live in the UK - there's always a pub round the corner. And yes, there are pubs which are essentially restaurants and everyone is keeping very low volume level - those are fine. But the types of pubs that all my friends/co-workers go to after work(filled to the brim with people, TV on, half of the people there are just there for pre-drinks before going on a night out) - nope, can't do those. And yet my friends can somehow easily sit there for 4 hours and talk about stuff while I'm just dumbfounded how anyone can understand a word unless it's literally shouted into my ear. Like, it's not just the venue choice - I can clearly see that other people are talking with each other.
Strangely enough it is the UK (or Ireland) where I think you can still find a social local, and I would be surprised if you couldn't think of examples yourself. Key things I would look for:
1. A wide range of ages that must include twenty year olds, middle aged customers, and elderly people.
2. It should have the vibe of a social friend's living room.
3. It doesn't have a primary goal of profit - would the owner still be there all the time if they won the lottery?
4. It is friendly to women: to quote a good-looking female friend from Shepperton "A bar I can go to by myself without getting hit on".
5. You could take a child there (not necessarily a child-friendly family bar, but neither should it be a booze palace where you wouldn't want to take your young son or daughter).
6. Unlikely to have music events or paid events that crowd out the regulars.
That said, I do get the feeling that this type of bar is harder to find over time in my country - maybe profit driven as younger drinkers do spend more - older drinkers get boozed at home with friends in my experience. I can think of examples I went to when I was younger in NZ, Ireland, and the UK.
I think the issue is the pubs you are going to. A real pub is quiet, with low ceilings, carpeted floors, comfy chairs/sofas organised in separate clusters, and a fireplace or two. It’s your living room away from home. Some “pubs” now are just bars with an Irish theme
Same problem. Hearing so good in quieter environments that it seems impossible to some people, and totally unable to make out a single word in a typical bar or club or party etc.
I’ve always thought it had something to do with undiagnosed ADD, or maybe more likely some autism spectrum disorder (though I never understood why medical professionals felt the need to label something that feels to me mostly like a few commonly coexisting personality traits and is not a source of any medical adversity for me a “treatable disorder”, so I’ve always rejected this).
I also have problems with alarms and sirens. I’ve walked down many miles of city blocks in my life, and I’m the only person I’ve ever seen who has to put down everything they’re holding and cover their ears with both hands any time an emergency vehicles drives by. That makes me enough of an outlier that I think there’s probably something medical to this, I don’t know what though.
Huh, the bit about emergency vehicle sirens is weird - because I'm exactly the same. If an emergency vehicle is driving past I have to cover my ears or otherwise it's just...painful? I've never seen anyone else do this.
Interesting! I’ve never seen anyone else do it either.
It’s similar to pain but it’s more like a sensory input at a level of intensity that is so overwhelming that it feels like it is or could cause permanent physical harm to whatever in my ear is receiving that input.
I guess I just described pain, but it feels a little different because the sensory input itself is the source of it, it’s not a side effect of anything else that’s happening, and it doesn’t really feel similar to any other kind of pain.
Fire alarms do this to me too. I lived in a building with false alarms every few weeks. I would like to have ignored them and continued working, but it is just impossible. I have to cover my ears and wait for the pauses between sounds to even do anything with my hands, like unplug a laptop or open a door.
Same. For me this is a symptom of my ADD. I know this because I can hear voices in loud rooms much better if I’m properly medicated. Makes sense considering ADD is the brain not prioritizing the right inputs. Unfortunately the medication makes me very uninterested in going to pubs or loud places.
Our local neighborhood pub is a very different scene at 5pm on a Tuesday, compared to 11pm on a Friday night. Bunch of local guys hanging out with the bartender yammering on about their downstairs neighbors playing music too loud, or cooking fish at 2am and the whole building smells like fish until breakfast time. Then Friday/Saturday night it's full of loud tourists looking to get ripped on tequila before staggering down the street to the next bar.
Some bars are just loud and noisy all the time. Depends on the location and the venue. We live in a tourist district with probably at least a hundred bars within walking distance, we visit two regularly (maybe once a week, midweek), and a third occasionally for a change of pace. Business district bars are also pretty chill from 4:30-7 as people are coming out of the office and wanting to blow off steam and complain about their boss or whatever.
I have this - and a set of NHS hearing aids help, but do not completely fix the problem. It's worse when tired.
As others have said, it's also a pub design issue. Modernist open bright bars are very noisy; traditional pubs with wood paneling, carpets and snugs are much better.
Apparently bars do that to boost the ammount of time spent drinking vs having conservations as one makes them more money. Needless to say it isn't without side effects like people discounting bars as a social hangout altogether.
