The embrace a good imperial stout can have on my mind is like a crushing hug you received as a kid from an overzealous overweight uncle. It crushes and calms the worry and anxiety over all the external fears and unknowns in my mind down to just a soft murmur. While the alcohol bear hugs the fears in my head, I’m free to express myself without my normal social anxieties.
I purchase a nice bottle from the craft beer bar here in Queens and begin to wander through the tables of strangers, like the ancestral hunters we all have in our lineage I seek out unsuspecting target to share my purchase with. The remainder of the night, I seek out and annihilate strangers, turning them into friends.
The offering of free beer makes this an effortless task.
With my new found friends we engage in discussions from travel, to food, and even polite political discourse. I’m given recommendations on local spots to see, and we share stories of life experiences and future goals with someone who not an hour earlier was just a random face in a bar. As the unexpected therapy session and beer run their natural course, I depart, a better person for the experience. With smiles, laughter and craft beer shared by all, we say our good byes.
This is my unorthodox therapy. I remove myself from the safety which is my armor of introvertism and allow myself to play the role of extrovert. Relinquishing my social fears I come out ahead. Engaging with these new found friends reminds me that people can be inherently good. There is something about craft beer that attracts the more positive and well adjusted people to the bars and establishments that cater to these lovers or hops, malts and truly unique experiences. Doctor Hunter S. Thompson got it right, “Good people drink good beer.”