The Globe, that ever-fashionable happy hour hot spot, sucks. It's a prime example of everything that is wrong with the people in this city.
I'm not going to get into the crowded-like-a-sausage-in-a-can thing, nor the less-than-enthusiastic service, nor the annoyingly loud music. Hell, I'll even skip over the fact that everyone is forced to stand outside in the street, spilling over the sidewalk, bumping into meters. These are, in the end, incidentals, and I in no way fault the management for these things. I know nothing about them, so I can't fairly praise nor criticize them.
But I can criticize the crowd, the ambiance of the place. It is, for me, as insipid, shallow and superficial as it gets. At first, I felt it was a cool place, hip, whatever. But it didn't take long for me to see that I was wrong.
I know that the true purpose of happy hour is to meet people and hook up. We can say we want to hang out with friends, that we want to unwind after a long week, etc. And that my be true enough, but the real reason, underneath it all, is the desire to see and be seen and at the same time pick people up. I think this is a great enterprise, I really do. And hell, when someone spends some energy trying to impress me, however unimpressed I am, I'm still flattered. So I'm not going to pretend that I'm appalled at the goings on at The Globe.
But I am appalled at how ridiculous the people there are. They have no concept of "subtlety." The notion is wasted on them. Standing in the crowd is to be drowning in a sea of cheap cologne, goopy hair gel, silicone and cheap blonde dye jobs. People check each other out in the most obvious and vulgar manner possible. Stop and listen to the conversations around you, and you'll catch snippets of crap. Let me put it this way: when a guy introduces himself to a woman, she will, within the first minute of conversation, ask him what car he drives, and he will answer like it's actually an important question..
I can't say enough how torturous it is for me to go there whenever I can't avoid it. It's not that I'm looking to be enlightened at happy hour, but I don't think it's too much to ask to engage in fun conversation, or subtle flirting.
Sadly, at The Globe, everything is too obvious and too gaudy. I leave it to the ultra-hip, as they seem to be the ones who can stomach so much bull shit in one night.