The trouble with bars is they’re touch-and-go. There are bars that facilitate revelry, places that we will visit on our deathbeds and chortle over fondly before we expire. There are also bars that are truly remarkable in their ability to make patrons feel dirty. Establishments that, in retrospect, will likely be ground zero for a new form of airborne STI.

In social spaces like this, the light is sickly, the tables are off-center and everything is sticky. Pool chalk — the very substance that was invented, produced,

and purchased with the single purpose of making things less sticky — is unalterably sticky.

Some people, contrary to most standards of decency, thrive in areas like this, and to a certain extent they deserve our respect because this is truly an accomplishment. Of sorts. These thoroughly inscrutable, magnificently coiffed beasts are of a different breed of people—a breed that is, by all appearances, also extremely changeable. They are the titans of social drinking, the gods of the distillery, the veritable Olympians of the perilous winter bar crawl. Terrifyingly, they sweat enthusiastically but leave behind them only manufactured fragrances.

We spend a lot of time with people like this is school, or we are these people, and regardless of what camp you build your fire in, there is a chance of bear mauling. Essentially, there’s an equal risk of social lionization or ostracization, either by proxy or by direct action. What changes things, however, is slathering oneself in animal fat and honey, peppering the perimeter of your campsite with bags of marshmallows and salmon carcasses, and then screaming “I am here, bears. Eat me if you so choose.”

This is an analogy of middling effectiveness, but this piece is for those of us who are social Middlers; the middle of the herd, the middle couch cushion, the middle row of seats, the peanut butter impaled between two pieces of socially unconscious slices of bread. The Middlers are the observers, those of us who respect the more socially boisterous but who choose to sit back and watch.

The Middlers are acutely aware of how they function within a certain space, and they realize they do so relative to others’ behavior. Middlers are comfortable in their status and don’t feel a compulsive need to alter their behavior in accordance with the new, different, not-home area they now occupy.

Bars are largely emblematic of the social space we occupy as young adults of a certain age. They are wonderful places because beer, but they are also unparalleled in their ability to facilitate bad behavior. The stakes are upped in spaces full of new, well-groomed people and copious amounts of alcohol.

Meaning, social environments like this bar present the individual with a no-win binary; you either behave badly/gregariously/otherwise undesirably because you are in a way desperate to impress/surprise/set a “cool” standard for others, or you behave badly because you don’t want to be associated with these others at all and are actually desperate to distinguish/separate/disengage yourself from someone else’s “cool” standard.

We approach people differently in certain social spaces, even disrespectfully, often with a wanton disregard for personal boundaries and a glaring lack of respect for other bodies. This isn’t meant to be particularly preachy; your author is under no delusion that entrenched social habits are going to be irrevocably altered with a sweeping change of a shared, common consciousness. What would be great, however, is recognizing how our behavior changes according to the physical space we inhabit, and how that behavior is not universal and is not always welcome or desirable.

Be conscious revelers. Consider being a Middler for an evening. It’s a great amount of fun, because you can drink and watch other people assume the role of the evening’s social succubus, and from that experience you may emerge a more geographically-conscious, considerate adult. (Also, people are more likely to pay for your drinks because they may feel sorry for you to an extent. It’s a win-win. You give nothing, but receive so much in return!)

Maggie O’Leary is the Multimedia Editor of The Dakota Student. She can be reached at [email protected].