Someone commented to me recently that people always cluster around the bar at parties, and she asked

Someone commented to me recently that people always cluster around the bar at parties, and she asked (admittedly, rhetorically) why?

I couldn't help but get to thinking about it though, and I think I have an idea. The context here: she was at a party at the Consumer Electronics Show, which meant that it was largely made up of people who didn't really know each other. It was some brand party.

This kind of a party isn't much of a party. It's a drinking session where people hope beyond hope that they might do some useful networking, but mainly they hope they won't get stuck standing alone. So on this level everyone is an open nerve.

Think about any time you've been standing with someone you didn't want to be standing with. You need a way to politely escape. As long as you are in a dull back and forth, it feels tough to move on. What you want is a transition. Any kind of transition.

So my theory is that at a low familiarity party like that, people are the most likely to bump into each other and start chatting at the spot with the most jostling and movement: the bar. Then once they find someone, they are very insecure about getting stuck alone. So they don't want to move at all. They stand fixed in place, at the nearest spot to where they first started talking, because they are insecure that their interlocutor is looking for an out, so they don't want to move at all lest that feels like a transition and gives them an opening to go.