Our entire lives are spent yearning for companionship. Even in the years where we relish our individuality, our singledom; there’s always the hope that in the future, when the time is more convenient, we’ll meet that person who can spark half a pill’s worth of euphoria with a single, well-worded text. Someone who gets your Simpsons references, hates Dermot O’Leary as much as you do, and probably disagrees with you on other stuff but it doesn’t matter because they’re cute, and funny, and intellectual, and will routinely send you pics of good boys they meet on the bus.
However, this eternal search for another—immortalised in the words of Keats, Browning, and Grande—may have been misplaced all along. Turns out the truest, purest love is not that between person and person, but between person and bev.
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Indeed, a clip on Twitter of Welsh Rugby fans singing the national anthem this weekend has gone viral after capturing a moment of unadulterated joy between a man and his pint.
The video, shared on Twitter by user Steve Powis, shows fans belting out the national anthem at the Principality Stadium in Cardiff before the Doddie Weir Cup this Saturday. In the top right hand corner, however, a man is focused on other things. This anonymous “bev lad” (if you will) takes a sip of his frosty beverage and is transported to a higher-tier of happiness.
Initially, there’s the simple, bodily satisfaction—not unusual after drinking a cold one. However, what follows is such an intense moment of happiness, such surprising bliss, that it rivals society’s greatest depictions of love. The moment where beer touches lip is a rollercoaster ride of joy, surprise, marvel, satisfaction, relish, and hope. It’s fucking Shakespeare.
You may as well give up on that search for “the one.” It was beer all along.