Here is why people like going out to drink

Have you ever met a woman so smashingly beautiful her presence makes your heart ache with longing? You take one fleeting look at her and your eyes, independent of your willpower, refuse to look away.

They are now in autopilot, and you are simply following along. You wonder who the lucky guy is that holds her down. It dawns on you that you do not really have game after all, toli wakitalo nyo nga gwe bwolowooza, because how do you explain the fact that you’d never have a chance with such a one?   

Anyway, the other day, I am seated with friends on a bench outside our favourite Kafunda when such a girl saunters in. She heads straight for the bar inside, without as little as acknowledging our presence. We all love the chic. But none of us is as love-stricken as Cliff. He even zones out of the conversation and gazes into the far distance the rest of evening.

Fast forward to 8pm that same evening, there is a power outage and our girl walks out probably to catch fresh air. She turns and looks our way as if she recognises one of us. She starts walking toward us.

Clearly she has dealt with whatever was stressing her and her mood has improved dramatically. We all watch her approaching us in the twilight, wondering what’s up.

Yes, it is dark but you can still make out the curves of a Greek goddess that endeared her to us earlier as she gets closer to our table. And just like that, she stops in front of Cliff and gasps.

“Sky! How could you return from Thailand and not call me?” she shouted. 

“Err. Errr… sorry, I…” Cliff stammered.

She grabs Cliff and gives him the kind of hug that goes on and on, her head buried in his neck. We watch in utter amazement. What the hell is happening? Three hours earlier we had all agreed none of us would never stand a chance with such a girl and here we were, with egg all over our faces.

The girl had delivered herself to Cliff without any effort.  Cliff played along. If she decided to call him Sky, then Sky he was. If she decided he had been to Thailand on a student exchange program, then to Thailand he had been.

As it turned out, they had been to the same school at the same time so it was not so hard for Cliff just play along and fill in the gaps with lies whenever necessary. The only difference was that Cliff was not Sky and yet at the end of the encounter, the two loved each other’s vibes and the rest, as they say, is history.

Interestingly, nothing changed when later she found out that Cliff was not Sky. 

It is such random incidences of pleasure that keeps sending people back to the bar. Why is the bar so enjoyable? It’s many things.

It’s the girls, it’s the incredible feeling of intoxication after three ice cold beers or after several shots of tequila and all that, but at the heart of it, it has everything to do with our primal temptation for pleasure and indiscipline. 

Frankly, few things feel better than that post-workout relaxation. But you see, you can only get their through hard work. Through discipline. You have to sweat for hours at the gym before you get that happy feeling. At the pub, all you need is, sit at the bar, drink, and BOOM! the feeling is there. 

It is not surprising that the most amazing people you will ever meet, the funniest, the most generous, the smartest are probably at the bar. It’s politically incorrect to say but you will mostly likely meet nicer people at the pub than at church. Maybe the nice people gravitate towards alcohol. 

Ironically, the pub ruins more lives than it builds. Good men have been destroyed by alcohol, one drink at a time. Intelligent men have become the laughing stock of the village because of alcohol. Wealthy men have lost everything because of alcohol. It is just what it is.  

I am sure each one of us knows how our life would have turned out very differently had we not given ourselves to the drink. Moderation, while it is very hard to nail down, is the name of the game. One must restrain oneself from losing oneself to the pleasure of alcohol.