Dean Statman

And that was last weekend that just passed.

And so my wife and I went and,

played badminton and we've never done that with each other before we've never really done anything like that with each other before and so had we not gone in for a beer we wouldn't have found this cool badminton place and we wouldn't have done this like great activity together as a couple i would have never said you want to stop for a beer before you go home because like in my mind at least i'm sure other people disagree like what's the point

Right.

I mean, you described the bar kind of environment perfectly.

And then in a very stark contrast to that, during that three-month stint, I ended up in a couple of situations where I was standing in a typical, literal social circle of five, six people talking, no one's drinking.

And this wasn't just people happen not to be drinking in that moment, but people who aren't drinking.

And

For health reasons.

To me, or whatever reasons, really.

But it felt like there was just this sort of... In the piece, I called it like a LinkedIn-coded coldness because it almost felt like we were waiting in a room before going into a job interview.

I felt like everyone had their kind of PR face on.

And it just felt weird.

And maybe it made me...

sort of in the moment feel like, well, I don't like this whole like not drinking thing.

But I found that people, a lot of the time, the people I was encountering who

who were specifically sober in the wellness scene, were people who... It felt like that was an important part of their personality.

It seemed like very few conversations went by without people announcing in some form or fashion or making it known that they don't drink.

And I just think that it kind of made conversations just feel a little more...

edited, maybe is a good word.