Weirdos, Wankers and Psychopaths.

The majority of pub attendees are normal. They are, on the whole, well mannered humans looking to spend a few quiet hours enjoying a drink and conversation with like minded people in a non-threatening environment. They are patient and understanding with bar staff, they don't seek any trouble and as a result do their best to avoid causing any.

There are of course, a minority of drinkers who deem it their sole purpose to annoy, harass, intimidate or just freak out the rest of us when they get in to the boozer. They fall into a couple of main categories; 'The Weirdos', 'The Wankers' and 'The Psychopaths'...

The Weirdos

Without doing much harm, the Weirdos are both the most prevalent and most annoying due to the frequency at which they have to be dealt with. However, Weirdos are also the most likely to become regulars (partly because they only tend to be out during the day but mainly because they hardly ever do anything that will get them barred). In these instances, familiarity can sometimes allow you to see the odd things they do as charming eccentricities. Sometimes, not.

Weirdo behaviours can range from mildly amusing (e.g. uncontrollably drumming on the bar for no reason) to genuinely terrifying... 

Scary Mary has a haunted look about her, although it seems impossible she never blinks. She's startled by the sound of the door she just walked through closing, every time she walks through it, without fail. After spending 4-7 minutes closely inspecting the walls in silence, she hovers to the bar, whispers an order for an orange juice and sits down on a stool to resume her important wall inspection work.

The best way to deal with a Weirdo is to leave them to it. Hopefully after a while they'll get bored of no one paying them attention and bugger off somewhere else.

The Wankers

Wankers usually travel in packs, if one is separated from the group they will spend their time bellowing incoherently at a fellow Wanker over the phone. They appear after dark and give off an unmistakable aroma of hair products and fake tan. 

The easiest way to spot a Wanker as they enter a pub, is that they usually do so whilst shouting about how shit the pub is. Courtesy is at odds with all a Wanker believes in - they abhor civility in all its guises - and do their best to erode the enjoyment of any non-Wankers in their vicinity, at all times.

Wanker tendencies mellow with age, so they are often under 30. There are of course, Wankers who through either a genetic mutation or a lack of self restraint manage to display Wanker characteristics well into middle-age and beyond. These 'Alpha Wankers', almost always exhibit Weirdo attributes - typically due to sustained alcoholism and microwaves from their Blackberrys melting their brains.

Usually a Wanker will do something awful enough for you to chuck them out fairly quickly. They always feign surprise when they do get asked to leave, but deep down they know they've done their job for the day.

The Psychopaths

Unlike Wankers, Psychopaths aren't even interested in casual banter. Wide-eyed and with a desperate air of crazy following them, Psychos always have faces like crimewatch photofits. Almost always completely hammered, they strut in snarling, waiting for something to upset them.

Lloyd the 'Roid (obviously not his real name), is my personal favourite. Every six months or so he forgets he's barred and wanders in to order a quintuple vodka and red bull or something equally ridiculous. He's so huge and musclebound that he looks almost square. Like a mental lego weightlifter or something. I ask him to remove the (quite frankly, awful) hat that he always wears and he goes apeshit. Once he started swinging stools and threatening Jo-Jo on a sunday afternoon.

As for Psychopaths, it's just a matter of hoping they don't come in when you're on shift. Or learning Kung Fu. Or having a plank of wood with a rusty nail in it behind the bar. Which I don't. So I just hope they don't come in while I'm on shift.