So, it was my birthday recently and since I don’t know anyone here, I thought of going to a bar myself. I picked a social pub (anonymous 
and thought of having a non-alcoholic beer, as I didn’t want to get arrested for DUI on my birthday. It was a medium crowd, nice music, soccer on TV and I got seated in the bar. After having my first sip, I realized that I forgot my mobile in the car. I thought of going out, but then I thought like why I can’t just spend my birthday evening around humans and not with some piece of electronic cr@p. After all, it was my birthday and I was wildly positive on doing the right thing by not surrendering to the technology. I looked around to have some human contact and there was only one gentleman in the bar area by himself like me. I said, “Hello Sir, how are you?” for which he replied, “good, thanks”. I was expecting him to ask me how I was, so that I can continue having that awkward social chat, but he didn’t. To make it worse, he left the pub after 5 minutes of my “hello”, and I refused to think I had something to do with his exit. With no options left and not wanting to lose my ego to the digital world by going back to my phone, I said “what’s up” to the bartender dude. He said “nothing much”, but returned the favor of asking “what’s up”. I could have not been silly, but then it’s just me, so I said, “I heard ____ guys get free beer here and is that why it’s called ____ social pub”? He replied, “No Sir, that’s a wrong information and we’re sorry”. A part of my soul died that he didn’t get my silly line. The rest of my soul died for he genuinely thought I was asking for free drinks using my colour. Needless to say, I didn’t even try talking to any women, as I’m prejudiced that young women here couldn’t discern the difference between lighthearted and creepy. At this point, I gave up on the human contact and decided to find inner peace with my non-alcoholic beer. Without my mobile, the choices were either to watch recorded soccer match or people around me. I could see everyone was looking at me, and I wished I could also see what they were thinking when they looked at me. I don’t know whether it was due to awkward/weirdness reinforcement in that room, but after being alone without a mobile in a social setting and people-watching for just 30minutes, I got creeped out by myself for the first time in my life. I felt like it was better to pay and leave before anyone called the cops, so I left without finishing my third drink. Finally when I got my phone, I had couple of messages asking about how my birthday was and I replied them I had one heck of an evening…
PS: Have any of you sat alone in a social setting without a mobile/electronics in this era, and what did you do?