Hitting on people is not the same anymore without open bar events Without free beers we've lost our powers
"Drinks tonight?"
In the pre-COVID life, we couldn't receive a better message to cope with the last hour and a half in the office. It was not only the mirage of a nice fresh (and free) beer with friends to cheer the last moments between mails and presentations, but the certainty that the person who proposed the aforementioned appointment had spent at least 5 minutes in the FB events section, practically the last reason we still keep Facebook, along with notifications that remind us of birthdays. That message meant that after a careful selection your partner in crime had found the event - strictly free, possibly open bar - most suitable for the evening. And even if you often accepted without exactly knowing what to expect, the location and the type of gathering already revealed a lot about the type of people you were going to meet, and therefore, the actual chance to get laid.
We have never cared much about the events our friends used to drag us, whether they were art, fashion, design, or music fanatics, or sometimes we were that friend, mainly looking for a wingman. How many conceptual sofas and lamps did we look at during the Fuori Salone just for the promise of a free drink afterwards? Nothing connects more perfect strangers than the search for the coveted waiter with the tray of beers. Those beers have always tasted like shit, even for our refined palates grown with Bacardi Breezers and Corona beers, but without them, it was impossible for us to really enjoy ourselves.
It was us, the creature of habits who could not live without this type of events, usually followed by a dinner at a Chinese all you can eat restaurant to prevent coming back home at 10 pm completely drunk, the first to realize, in the hardest weeks of lockdown, that the drinks on FaceTime could never have replaced the real ones. We tried to reinvent ourselves, we experimented with fire reactions on Instagram and with catchy songs sent via chat, but deep down we know we're not made for this, we know we could do better, we know we would give our best only in the inner courtyard of Spazio Maiocchi.
With the prospect of a summer without festivals and drinks on the beach, we are only comforted by the thought that what awaits us will be a fiery September, four weeks full of events, parties, after-parties, openings, gatherings, festivals, all that has been cancelled since March and that needs to be rescheduled. Aware of returning to activity after months of abstinence, both in terms of alcohol intake and in terms of yardstick in choosing a partner, we are ready to return to action, armed with condoms and bottle openers.
