Jeff Burkhart: A true friend or just a bar buddy?

It could have been any night, and it could have been any two guys. After work or something, the two sat at the bar. Whiskey was ordered. So was beer. But that sounds much easier than it was. It actually went something like this:

Do you have this? Do you have that? Why don’t you have this? Why don’t you have that? You should get this. You should get that. I have had this. I have had that.

It’s called “measuring” and I don’t mean liquids because there is usually another word placed before “measuring,” one that isn’t appropriate for a family newspaper.

I get it. I understand it. Because I see it nearly every day.

Once they got through the measuring contest they really got down to business. Sort of.

“My girlfriend is driving me nuts,” said the man in a trucker’s hat.

“Can’t live with them, right? said his friend, also in a trucker’s hat.

They both laughed.

When we think of friendships, we often think of likes shared in common. But sometimes it’s not what we “like,” but what we don’t like that brings us together. Don’t believe me? Just go on the internet and take a look. See how many likes a post’s negative comments get. It can be sobering, so to speak.

“You can do better, dude,” the friend said.

“You’re probably right,” the first man said.

If you can’t bond over things you don’t like, it’s possible to bond over things you don’t understand.

“I only have time for one,” he said trucker on another occasion, but this he was a knit stocking cap.

“Whipped,” said his buddy, also in a stocking cap.

Two more drinks, and there was an intense text exchange with someone not at the bar. Three more and there was a phone conversation outside.

“Come on, one more,” said his friend when he returned.

In the bar equation, the friends people gravitate toward are the ones who want to do things, not the friends who don’t want to. Co-conspirators I think they are called. Nobody wants to hang out with the guy who doesn’t want to go into the city at midnight. Or the gal who doesn’t want the side of fries. Or the friend who says, “We both have to work, maybe we should get going.” How does the old saying go: No great story starts with “We ordered the salad.”

A pattern developed over the next few months. Bad behavior ensued.

“Don’t answer,” said the first man, now sporting a Giants cap. “Don’t give her the satisfaction.”

“You are right, I won’t,” his friend, also in a Giants cap, said.

The most expensive whiskeys were ordered last, which when it comes to the actual tasting of things, is the opposite way one should do it. Alcohol is not only an antiseptic, but it is also an analgesic, meaning that when it comes into contact with your taste buds, it anesthetizes them, especially when the alcohol is high proof. Anesthetized taste buds can’t taste, at least not accurately or objectively.

But sometimes accuracy and objectivity are not the goal.

“Two Macallan 18s,” said the man having the text exchanges.

“That’s going to be about $160,” replied the bartender, not because he thought they couldn’t afford the Scotch, but because he wanted to make sure they wanted to afford it. In the liquor industry lately it is not unusual for prices to go up every few weeks. Which means that whiskey you bought last month might cost twice as much now.

It didn’t matter. Not the price or the taste. But three whiskeys in and judgments often go right out the window.

Eventually the texts stopped, not on that visit, but somewhere down the line. So did the calls. And ultimately so did the visits.

A few months later the first man showed up with a woman.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” the bartender said.

“Yeah, I have been kind of busy.”

“Haven’t seen your buddy either.”

Hen then got a pained look on his un-hatted head.

“Uh, this is awkward. This is kind of his ex,” he said pointing at the woman. He then proceeded to order two chardonnays and a split salad for the two of them.

Leaving me with these thoughts:

• Just because you have the same feathers doesn’t mean that you have the same stripes.

• Find the friends who encourage you to be your best, not your worst.

• Drinking buddies sometimes aren’t buddies at all

• If you don’t value what you have, rest assured someone else will.

Jeff Burkhart is the author of “Twenty Years Behind Bars: The Spirited Adventures of a Real Bartender, Vol. I and II,” the host of the Barfly Podcast on iTunes and an award-winning bartender at a local restaurant. Follow him at jeffburkhart.net and contact him at [email protected]