I am Not a Hipster

On Saturday night, Erajh and I were invited to a birthday party.  As we were getting ready, it occurred to me that I had absolutely no idea where we were going or what the dress code was.  Unfortunately, Erajh didn’t know either, so he pulled up the locations’ website only to find that the place is a self-proclaimed “Hipster Bar”.  Um, okay, but I don’t know what that means.  What is a Hipster?  And why do they have to have their own bars?  Is it a discrimination thing?  Do they allow non-Hipsters in to Hipster Bars?  I hoped so, because there’s no way I’m hip (at least not according to Greenleigh) and we were on our way out the door about an hour later.

So while I still don’t know exactly what a “Hipster” bar is, my research uncovered the following about Hipsters themselves.  I hope this helps someone out there.

• Hipsters like to be vague.  The name of the bar must make absolutely no sense.  Pick a random noun, random adjective, and put the word “The” in front of it.  Like for example, The Teapot Single.  There you go, you have a hipster bar.  It was annoying because I spent most of the night trying to figure out what the name meant only to find it meant nothing.
• Hipsters don’t really want to hear anything you say.  The music is good, but must be insanely loud.  You scream to make conversation until you just give up.  I’m pretty sure that was their plan.
• Hipsters are skinny.  No food served.  At.  All.  Not a crumb.  Good for them, but this girl’s gotta eat.  Perhaps this is their attempt to starve out the weakest links?  That would be me.
• Hipsters like to test their vision often.  It was so dark in the bar that to read the menu, they handed you a candle.  Seriously.  Then intermittently they would flash the lights brighter and dimmer with no warning or reason.  Not in a cool dance club kind of way, but more of a “there’s a tropical storm headed this way and we’re all about to lose power” kind of a way.  But don’t worry, even if you could read the menu, no one across the bar could actually hear what you were attempting to order, because again, they don’t really want to hear you.
• Hipsters like to exercise.  Two words – No Parking.  Park several blocks a way and hoof it, or be lucky enough to pay $10 to valet park.  Good thing they put these types of bars in sketchy areas that they are attemping to “revitalize”.  Perfect for walking at night.
• Hipsters are like vampires and don’t come out until it’s late.  The place doesn’t start to get crowded until around midnight, you know, when I’m walking out swearing that I’m so tired I might fall asleep on the way home.  Oh, and my daughter has gym class in 9 hours…count down to kiddie cardio and I’m not even near home yet.

In summary, a Hipster bar is a great place to go if you want to feel old, quickly.  The next morning I just barely caught myself from yelling at some neighbor kids to get off my lawn.  After 4 hours in the bar, nothing was clearer to me that night than the fact that I’m not a Hipster.  And I’m perfectly okay with that.  Although we had a great time visiting with friends that we hardly ever see, I’m pretty sure we’re going to stick to our normal, non-hip hangouts.