Having spent far too much time in pubs these last ten years..
..I can't disagree with your points above. Sometimes you get those magical evenings where the venue's right, the music and other people are not offensive and everyone's on sparkling form, but they are rare. Mostly it's petty one-upmanship in the pub-anecdote/spurious factoid stakes, oggling "fitties", shouting at a TV screen and/or exchanging heartfelt advice on life improvement that sounds like total bollocks the next today.

I'm probably old and jaded. It used to be better. I had a group of about 10/15 friends round here that used to meet up in pubs from our late-teens. To start with we always had a great time. Then it got stale and over the years an astonishing level of petty bickering means that many of us don't talk anymore. I know well that complicit look in the eye that says, "neither of us wants to be here really but let's make the most of it" followed by awkward silences and desperate small-talk.

The only reason I go to the pub these days is to get out of the house when I haven't spoken to anyone all day. If I'm drinking wioth friends we have a better time at home.
(raymond "three griddle pans" luxury yacht lovin' the christmas action, Fri 6 Feb 2009, 11:47, Reply)