Tuesday, 19 July 2011 15:32

My hands are stained with purple and blue chalk, and I’m pretty sure I have a sunburn, but the invitations were all handed out and the sidewalks neatly chalked – save for the last two where David and I succumbed to the heat and our own exhaustion and half-assed it.  It’s time for the weekly Liberty Social Hour!

Put on by Mercado News, Bhive, and Cityevents, the Liberty Social Hour runs each Thursday at varying venues until August 9, and was organized as a means for businesses and residents in the Liberty Village area to really get to know one another. This week it was at Merci Mon Ami, a small pub that holds about 60 people including the patio. The idea, according to organizer Rod Ponce, is to move the events to slightly bigger venues each time and gain recurring guests as well as newcomers.

Ponce hopes that the weekly occurrence of the Liberty Social Hour, different from most one-time social-networking events, will give local businesses and residents a chance to really get to know each other and communicate.

The evening started off slow at 5:30, with a few early birds quietly nibbling at the pulled pork sandwiches and coleslaw that the staff at Merci Mon Ami had prepared specially for the event.  The large communal tables inside the pub, designed to encourage conversation among guests, sat empty.  Some were there with friends, but a lot came alone. There was the initial sense of shyness, that coy, shoulder-shrug nature we all assume when were forced off our smartphones and newspapers and confronted with the all-to-scary idea of talking to strangers....but then, cautiously, slowly, it all changed.

The perfect weather beckoned the guests to mingle on the patio, where, not coincidentally, the beer tub had also set up shop.  At about 6:30, the pub began to fill with the last guests closing up their work for the day, and eager to get in a few beers and soak up the sun after work.  A few Stella’s later, and the patio was abuzz with conversation.  Strangers shared cigarettes and talked about their families, where they lived, and the common community they all shared: Liberty Village.  No one talked about the lows of their job, or how stressed they were; for those few hours we were all old friends.  Business cards and emails were exchanged not in the hopes of netting a new client, but in the hopes of garnering a new friend, a familiar face in the community to say hello to on our way to the office.   The communal tables in the pub filled as well.  Handshakes turned into hugs, and as the pub grew louder, people drew closer to each other to talk; hands went to faces and arms encircled like long-time friends in an attempt converse intimately in the loud crowd.

“It’s great to see the community come together like this,” said Lee Crozier, a small-business employee in the village.  “I’ve lived here for years, so I’ve seen the revitalization this neighbourhood has gone through. It’s nice since everyone’s so new to bring them together and socialize.”

Scott Ryder, a visitor from Vancouver, wearing a Boston Bruins t-shirt, caught my eye.  “You’ve got some nerve wearing that shirt,” I told him.  “I’m from Vancouver.”

“So am I,” he said with a smirk.  We became instant friends.  “I’ve been here quite a few times,” he said.  My friend lives just around the corner.  I love this neighbourhood.  It’s got such a cool, urban feel to it.  I’ve seen it grow each time I visit.”  We chatted for a few minutes after that, exchanging stories of the differences between Vancouver and Toronto and laughing like we’d had known each other for years, not a mere few minutes.  In any other setting, I simply would have commented on his shirt and went about my day, never giving a second thought to the interaction, but here, in the sun, in the village, with a beer in my hand and strangers becoming fast friends all around me, I lingered for awhile and made a friend of my own.

At about 9:00, the shots came out: a tray carrying eight tequila shots made its way to a group of people who a few hours ago had been strangers.  They crowded themselves around a table intended for four, huddled together, legs and arms all touching.  As they raised their shot glasses, one gentleman gave a cheer that summed up the evening, “to new friends,” he said, as everyone echoed his sentiment and downed the tequila.  The standard “whoo!” that always follows rang out from the crowd.

And it really was to new friends. Many people heard about the event over Twitter or the Liberty Village website, but it was the chance to get out and actually meet their community members that drove them out to Merci Mon Ami well after the event’s 8:30 finish.  The success of the evening lied not in an exchange of commerce or business, but in an exchange of friendships and communication, and in the end, isn’t that what’s it’s really all about?  In a world where we rarely leave our computers and email for more than an hour and texting is favoured over phone calls, it is still the face-to-face conversing that gets us moving.  It is still the satisfaction of the human interaction, of that simple handshake or hug or pat on the back that we remember and that we carry with us in our daily lives.

-- Kadie Smith