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Reading A Book In A Pub. Weird?

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Comments

  • #62
    bonzodog2
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,330 ✭✭✭bonzodog2


    Whether others perceive it as weird will depend on
    1. The pub
    2. The others
    3. The time
    4. If you look weird anyway
    5. Maybe some other stuff I can't think of now


  • #63
    Deus Ex Machina
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,556 ✭✭✭Deus Ex Machina


    I would go quite far out of my way to avoid being around a bunch of people I don't know who are getting liqueured up, laughed and having inane conversations, and this is if I am liqueured up myself. If I were reading I would stay at home, find a slow sipping Armagnac, and become immersed in the words of somebody I care to listen to.


  • #64
    shuvly
    Closed Accounts Posts: 527 ✭✭✭shuvly


    [QUOTE=easyeason3;65771768

    There's a real air of desperation off a woman if she goes into a pub alone to have a drink...reading material or not it smacks of being a loser.[/QUOTE]

    I have days off during the week, when others are working. I occasionally enjoy going out for lunch at the pub alone , reading a book or the paper, and having a glass or two of wine. But thank you so much for your post, you have reminded me that we women have no right to perform such a morrally reprehensive action, and I will endeavour to stay at home, barefoot and pregnant and chained to the kitchen sink...(emmm, maybe not the pregnant bit, rest sounds ok as long as I am within reach of the fridge with the wine in it!...and maybe a man might come in usefull for more than DIY!!!)


  • #65
    M.Pool
    Closed Accounts Posts: 185 ✭✭M.Pool


    I think we Irish like to downplay our intellect. We're like the bright kids in a class full of messers. We pretend we're not half as smart just to fit in. So reading a novel in public, way too intellectual for us good for a laugh but brain celled challenged Irish.


  • #66
    shuvly
    Closed Accounts Posts: 527 ✭✭✭shuvly


    easyeason3 wrote: »
    Ah now....I'm sure you're a nice person even if you are desperate ;)

    I go to a pub to be social & have a chat with people, not to have a few drinks on my own with a book or a paper, I can do that at home if I feel like it.

    Well, I imagine you have been at home a while....


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  • #67
    bnt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,177 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    I've done it sometimes, never found it a problem. One, maybe two pints, on a quiet evening. Some folks here don't seem to get that going out for a Drink doesn't have to mean getting Drunk. Must be one of those strange European ideas, like sitting in a café in Paris, perusing Proust with a pastis.

    About the only "incident" I can recall was late one Saturday night five years ago, when I got bored, popped out for the early Sunday paper, then in to a pub in time for the last round. It wasn't busy, but there were a group of girls who made some bitchy remarks about "going to a pub to read" on their way out. I thought I was getting more genuine enjoyment from my evening than they were. :rolleyes:

    You are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is afraid it has found. I am so glad that you have never done anything, never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.

    ―Oscar Wilde predicting Social Media, in The Picture of Dorian Gray



  • #68
    shuvly
    Closed Accounts Posts: 527 ✭✭✭shuvly


    I am posting to say "thank you" to all the sensible, realistic posts on here that supported a womans right to have a drink in a pub on their own...you know who you are..but...I still get the maja that it is not the done thing....so you lads can prop up the bar, pretending to be reading the racing post, but really ye are all sitting there drooling over page 3...yeah, I know..am never gonna be there!


  • #69
    Skid
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,873 ✭✭✭Skid


    strobe wrote: »
    Ok so, a couple of weeks ago I popped into a pub I was passing on my way home from town and had my usual pint and a few whiskey n ices and sat there and read the novel I'm currently into. I've been doing this for years, since I was old enough to get served in bars.

    I was there for about an hour and a half and on my way out I ran into someone I know. They asked who I was with but I just told them I just came in to read my book and have a few drinks, and that it was something I always do. He thought it was gas in anyway. Then when I got home I just got thinking that I never actually recall seeing a single other person sitting on their own reading a book in a pub. Lots of people reading the paper but never a novel that I remember.

    So is it an unusal thing to do? Does anyone else here do it?


    Nothing wrong with this at all.

    Apart from putting ice in Whiskey - That's completely wrong.:rolleyes:


  • #70
    ToniTuddle
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,964 ✭✭✭ToniTuddle


    Reading a book in the pub? Nope, not weird.
    Talking to thin air with a deranged look in your face? Yes, definitely!

    As previous posters have said nothing better than sitting in a comfy old mans pub and reading a book by the seats near the fireplace, enjoy your favourite drink.

    easyeason3 wrote: »
    Maybe.

    But do you not think it's really scummy if you see a woman in a pub on her own nursing a drink?


    I hate this attitude. Whether you meant to get a reaction out of people of not alot of people have this idea in their heads.

    I travelled to New Zealand by myself and instead of staying in the house boozing it up, I did like to venture out into the social scene every now and then and have a drink.

    Nothing scummy about it.


  • #71
    Dudess
    Closed Accounts Posts: 37,214 ✭✭✭✭Dudess


    easyeason3 wrote: »
    There's a real air of desperation off a woman if she goes into a pub alone to have a drink...reading material or not it smacks of being a loser.
    Wtf?! In YOUR head maybe...
    easyeason3 wrote: »
    It's just not something I would do so that's why I'd find it strange.
    Yeah, in YOUR head...

    Wouldn't do it myself as, for me personally, the pub is a place for being in others' company, but I certainly wouldn't be saying horrible things about those women who do it... :confused:


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  • #72
    strobe
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,872 ✭✭✭strobe


    SkidMark wrote: »
    Nothing wrong with this at all.

    Apart from putting ice in Whiskey - That's completely wrong.:rolleyes:

    LOL, I actually can't believe it took that long for someone to complain about me putting ice in my whiskey. I figured that would be post number 2. I know it "kills the taste" or whatever but I'm a Jameson man and as the good lord said "Throw a fukk load of ice into your Jameson pal!!!" - Corintians 3:24 -


  • #73
    Aurora Borealis
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 939 ✭✭✭Aurora Borealis


    ToniTuddle wrote: »
    Reading a book in the pub? Nope, not weird.
    Talking to thin air with a deranged look in your face? Yes, definitely!

    As previous posters have said nothing better than sitting in a comfy old mans pub and reading a book by the seats near the fireplace, enjoy your favourite drink.





    I hate this attitude. Whether you meant to get a reaction out of people of not alot of people have this idea in their heads.

    I travelled to New Zealand by myself and instead of staying in the house boozing it up, I did like to venture out into the social scene every now and then and have a drink.

    Nothing scummy about it.

    Nope nothing scummy bout it at all but oddly far more comfortable away from home isn't it... Like that obviously when traveling alone it's a no brainer but having met a few friends tonight I decided to head off for a few toute seule. Was cool til I met someone I knew and they visiibly felt awkward that I was just gigging on my own. I actually did myself then momentarily. Wouldn't have even crossed my mind for a second elsewhere.


  • #74
    Skinfull
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,433 ✭✭✭Skinfull


    I'd pop out for lunch, match (Magners league, usually too entertained by ERC), random sat/sun pint and shock horror I've been known to bring reading material. Nothing weird. And I'm female so I guess according to easyeason3 that makes me desperate.
    Desperate for a pint and a place to read maybe :)


  • #75
    ronano
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,174 ✭✭✭ronano


    I've done it once and it was wonderful,i'd do it again but i cba walking to the quiet pub


  • #76
    Mr Benevolent
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,433 ✭✭✭✭Mr Benevolent


    Hang on, isn't easyeason3 female?


  • #77
    bnt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,177 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    In much of Southern Europe they don't even have Pubs in the way they do here in Ireland (places where you're expected to drink). There are bars or cafés where they also serve beer or wine, for example. In the UK, a major reason why they relaxed opening hours was to try and inculcate this "European drinking culture". Less emphasis on "getting them in before closing time", less pressure to binge drink, said the theory. It hasn't quite worked out that way, but neither has it backfired badly, as some predicted.

    So I really don't get this idea that it's weird for people (M or F) to go to a pub alone, with or without a book. A pub, café or restaurant should be a safe environment where you can just go to relax, with or without a drink. The only restriction on what you do should be that it doesn't bother anyone else, and who's bothered by me reading a book? If you have a problem with that, it's your problem, not mine.

    You are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is afraid it has found. I am so glad that you have never done anything, never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.

    ―Oscar Wilde predicting Social Media, in The Picture of Dorian Gray



  • #78
    CrazyRabbit
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,659 ✭✭✭CrazyRabbit


    I read Playboy when I'm in the pub. I keep getting strange looks, especially when I'm in one of those family-orientated pubs.

    Some great articles in Playboy.


  • #79
    i71jskz5xu42pb
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,806 ✭✭✭i71jskz5xu42pb


    bnt wrote: »
    In much of Southern Europe they don't even have Pubs in the way they do here in Ireland (places where you're expected to drink). There are bars or cafés where they also serve beer or wine, for example.
    Michael McDowell tried to introduce cafe bar licence here while he was Minister for Justice. Knocked on the head by Fianna Fáil because they were worried about pissing off the publican lobby the effect it would have on society.
    Five years on and I'm still bitter about it.


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