But, just in case, here are some things to avoid:

1. Never offer a ‘genuine compliment’. Compliments are fake and everyone knows it!
2. Never bring up family. That’s who people are trying to escape.
3. Never talk about food or drinks. If it’s good it’ll be obvious and if it’s bad talking won’t help.
4. Never ask about work. Those employed need a break. The unemployed need a drink, quick.
5. Never bring up hobbies. No one has time for them.

1. Failed Relationships
2. Illness and Death
3. Unpleasant Smells
4. Childhood Pets (especially fish)
5. History (especially Polish wars)

My advice is: Pour yourself a drink, turn up the music and sit quietly on Your Barstool!

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” – Abraham Lincoln

The fact is that home bars are not just for entertaining with alcoholic beverages. They’re for the kitchen or outside garden, a place to sit and sip your morning coffee, orange juice or smoothy, a place to read the paper or find out about all the things your kids don’t want you to know. The real bar stool conversations are had with the people you think you know very well.

There’s something about the way you sit on a stool, high up and not slumped down into cushions, that elevate thoughts. Perhaps it’s the casual nature of being almost in a standing position, eye to eye with the person beside you, at the same level, that allows you to speak your mind without calculating so much.

As I said in another post, I got to know and appreciate my husband so much more by the moments shared on bar stools near a window overlooking the city.  We had so often talked on a sofa, in the bedroom, lying down, comfy, in many ways, but nothing was like the moments of silence eye to eye, each on a barstool, and then the deepest secrets and dreams just flowed out.

So keep searching for that perfect stool that will elevate your thoughts and help the conversations to flow, even if that means using your eyes and heart to do most of the talking.