Coffee House: M&S, Parliament Street, York
Drink: Latte
Cake:None (abstaining for a while)
Blokes. Or first off - Blokey Blokes. You know the type of guys I mean? Not talking about the Old Git contingency with their bald heads and beer bellies who may or may not be blokey in their lifestyle. No, it's those guys (not an exhaustive list)
- usually 30+
- spend their lives talking about sport rather than participating in any (usually football but could be any that are currently being shown somewhere on some channel)
- drink lots of beer (and are fussed about how it's kept/poured/type of glass etc)
- hang around in groups of ,almost exclusively, guys
It's possible, of course, to have some of these attributes without being a blokey bloke. There are lots of people/friends who like sport but don't fall into the boorish behaviour category. And you can be a racist and not be a blokey bloke.
No, blokey blokes appear fairly harmless from the outside. 'Just the lads going out for a drink with their mates. Away from the girls'. (I've used the male gender throughout here but expect that there's a female equivalent) Mixing too much with them though can have a toxic effect, narrowing your perspective and reducing your capacity to view people as people rather than labels.
Now me, I avoid all male company as much as possible. Admittedly I generally avoid all company as much as possible but if I do find myself in a bar/party/whatever with a bunch of people who expect some interaction from me then I'd rather it be mixed gender. Or mainly female.
An aside here, and I think it stems from coming from the generation who went to single sex schools, I still find it hard to distinguish between liking/being a friend with a woman and fancying them. Nothing to do with physical attributes/'attractiveness' btw. I can be shallow but not that shallow.
No, the good thing about mixed company is that it reduces the likelihood of blokeish behaviour. You still get the odd 'post modernist' comment by some twat who thinks it's fine to insult someone with a racist/anti-gay comment because he was only being ironic or edgy. But there's less tolerance and usually more interesting conversation and more fun due to the lack of it.
Now I've recently started to revise my view on guy company as ,over the last year or so, I've mixed with a whole new category (to me) of blokes, and have found the experience surprisingly liberating. The category being Musicians. (Sadly there are relatively few women in this grouping)
As proved by a recent Facebook test, I am 0% hippy but have spent most of my life being viewed as something along those lines. The tag presumably meaning that I love all of mankind, animal/plant life and grain of sand. Admittedly I do have a broadly non-conformist take on the world and try to avoid falling into too many of the traps that limit your chance of being yourself. But I am a pretty stand offish sort of a guy.
What I have found though, with my interactions with people who sing, play an instrument in public, at least in the city of York, is a truly lovely openness and warmth of feeling to others within the clan. Almost without exception (though I do have a list of the exceptions) musicians who appear aloof/unfriendly when you first meet are incredibly welcoming when you go and say hello. I'm talking from a fellow musician perspective here. Can't guarantee the same response if you are a pissed member of the audience trying to say hello to Lemmy.
The first inkling that I may have encountered a new tribe (for me) was when I had a message back from a musician (guy) who added a x/kiss on the bottom of the page. It was the first time this had happened to me from a guy and I thought perhaps it was a sexual thing but decided I'd let it pass (not hung up on the straight/gay categorisations btw. I feel sexuality is a continuum between those two terms) Anyway, I thought no more about it but then noticed that it was a standard way of ending messages amongst musicians (younger people generally?) and was just showing affection.
Similarly, I have never been a hugging sort of guy. I never even shook hands with people until I had an office job. We rarely hugged in the family and then it was a m/f embrace. So seeing musicians greet each other with a warm hug was again surprising but truly heart warming.
I've started to do my fair share of hugging now and I feel a better person for it. It's good to express warmth/love to others. It's taken quite a while for me to realise how important that is. Can't say I've completely overcome my ingrained/default position of avoiding contact with people but it looks like there may be a chink in my armour appearing
