Expat

I know people who go to work and when it’s time to leave, they go home. They have a work life and a personal life, and they keep the two completely separate. I spend so much time at work that I’ve never understood how people do that. In New York, there was always a core group willing to go out at least once a week after work. It was nice to get away from the office and either talk about work or not talk about work at all. In retrospect, when I didn’t have that kind of social outlet, it usually coincided with my least happy times at work.

When I moved to London, I hoped to find something similar since I already knew a few people locally. At first, though, I discovered that no one really did that here. It bummed me out a bit until I realized one of my colleagues was also eager to start a tradition. So we did.

Before the lockdown, I spent my first couple of years in London going out with friends after work, and inevitably I noticed a few cultural differences between London and New York that fascinated me. The first thing I learned was the phrase “eating is cheating.” Apparently, that means you go to the pub to drink, not to eat. In New York, there was always at least one person who would order appetizers or finger food. They were delicious and had the bonus of softening the alcohol’s effects. In London, that’s almost never the case. Eating is, indeed, cheating.

The other difference is how rounds work. In London, the first round of drinks is usually small, because people trickle in at different times. In New York, the first round is massive. Everyone shows up right after work, and the early crowd is the biggest. Two or three rounds later, the group thins out dramatically. In London, it’s much more fluid.

One of the things that really stuck with me about London pub life is what I’ve come to call the “sanctity of the bar round.” One evening, we were at an outdoor pub near the office. It was someone else’s turn to get the round. My usual drink is a Jack Daniels and Diet Coke—it’s reliably available almost anywhere. This pub, however, didn’t have Jack Daniels. My friend came back with drinks for everyone else and told me they didn’t have my usual. He said they had a generic bourbon if I wanted that instead. I said fine and started to walk toward the bar to get it myself. My friend physically stopped me, put down his drink, and went back inside to get it for me. Everyone else at the table agreed that it was absolutely his responsibility. Apparently, once you take a round, you’re in it until everyone has their drink in hand.

That wasn’t the only time it happened either. I brought it up with other friends later, and everyone agreed on the same thing. The sanctity of the bar round is real and you never disrupt it.