An Ode to the Pub

I once saw an old man in the pub. He had sad eyes: that’s what I remember most about him. Sad, slightly glazed eyes that stared into the frothy foam of an undrunk Guinness, waiting to be met with kindness. I pulled up a chair to talk to him, but he didn’t seem interested: “Waiting for a friend,” he muttered gruffly, so I backed off. My friends arrived soon after; laughter distracted us, and we all had a good time. I didn’t pay much attention to the old man that night. It wasn’t like I was going to see him again—right?

The next time I went to the pub, he was there. It was as if he hadn’t moved an inch. Like a statue, he stayed fixed on his bar stool, again staring into his undrunk Guinness with those sad eyes of his. I pulled my stool closer and asked what I had asked the week before: “You alright, mate?” Half expecting the same dismissive answer as last week, I had one foot halfway to the ground when he turned to face me. This was new. He looked me in the eye and said, “No, mate, I’m not.” For those who don’t know much about British social interactions, this was highly unusual—someone saying how they really felt.

I asked if he was waiting for his friend again, though in my heart of hearts I knew the answer. No friend was coming to share a drink with him; he was just too ashamed to admit he was alone. In Sam Mendes’s 2022 romantic drama “Empire of Light,” a scene not too far from what I was experiencing shows Stephen, a young Black man, listening to his much older coworker, Hilary, as she tells a story from her childhood. The moment ends with the words: “Shame is not a healthy condition.” That much was apparent to me as I sat face to face with Paul at the local pub on a random Tuesday night.

Inspecting his face now, I noticed his eyes weren’t just glazed, as older people’s eyes often seem, but filled with tears. “Tell me your story, and I’ll tell you mine,” I said. We talked, and he told me about his life. How he fell in love young, then promptly fell out of love, then fell in love again—you can see where I’m going. It’s safe to say Paul was doing a lot of loving in his youth. We spoke about loss: his first wife and a son taken too early. A son who never got to know his father’s love of football, beer, or himself. “Taken too soon,” Paul kept repeating to himself, forgetting I was sitting next to him, his eyes drifting back to his Guinness. We didn’t stay on that topic for long; it got silent, and we just sat for a while.

I broke the silence first: “Another round?”

“Go on then,” he replied.

A pub isn’t just a place where two random people from polar opposite worlds can meet, talk, laugh, and cry together; it is one of the only places where that can happen. A pub is not just a pub. A pub is so much more than a pub because it has to be. It’s a cathedral for the faithless, a community center for the friendless, and on pub quiz nights, a library for those who are undereducated (or overeducated) in useless facts.

The world has become increasingly closed off. Everywhere you turn, you have to pay for entry or have a membership—there’s none of that at the public house. Come equipped with a valid ID, or, for some underage drinkers, convincing enough facial hair, and the doors will open.

Few feelings are better than getting that customary, cheeky “pub?” text from a mate after a long week. Why? Because it was never about the booze, nor the stale crisps you order, knowing they may be stale, but you’re at the pub, so you’ve got to do it anyway. It’s never been about the little wince you make after seeing the price of one Guinness in a central London pub, or the Asahi glass that may or may not be coming home with you as a reminder of a night well spent. It’s about the chat, jokes, japes, and tables you can press your ears against (and I mean really press them on the wood) to hear the laughter of different generations of friends who have all met at the same pub to catch up and talk about their lives.

That’s not to say I don’t appreciate a good American bar, but there’s no need for all the bells and whistles. Don’t you get tired of neon signs and TVs drowning out any meaningful conversation with Liberty Mutual ads every three seconds? I certainly do. Give me a surprisingly sticky pint glass, a random dog sitting beneath a stool, and an old man in search of conversation every day of the week, and I’d be content.

I still see Paul quite often. He always beats me to the pub and is always in his usual spot, three stools from the bar’s end, cradling his signature undrunk Guinness. When he sees me, he raises his glass and, before I can even ask, says, “I’m waiting for a friend,” then nods at my usual spot—the empty stool next to his—and we get to talking like friends.

Paul’s not the only friend I’ve made at the pub, and he certainly won’t be the last, but he’s the one who stuck with me. Had I been that guy who sent the dreaded “sorry, mate, bogged down with work” text in response to that “pub?” I never would have met him. Don’t ever be that guy.

So go! Go for the “pints, chit chat and good people” (to steal a line from a British TikTok meme). And if you see someone sitting alone, pull up a chair (if the moment is right, because you may not like the response you get if it isn’t) and strike up a conversation. You never know what’s in store for you at the pub, but you’ll be glad you went.

Noah Basden ’29 (nhbasden@college.harvard.edu) misses his local.