{{unreferenced, date=July 2021 Patrons of the Eagle

A social lubricant is any food, beverage, drug or activity that stimulates social interactions or helps people feel more comfortable in social occasions. Different cultures use different social lubricants for this purpose. Some common social lubricants are: *

Humor Humour (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humorism, humoral medicine of the ancient Gre ...

is the most prevalent social lubricant spanning all cultures and age groups. *

Alcoholic beverage An alcoholic beverage (also called an alcoholic drink, adult beverage, or a drink) is a drink that contains ethanol, a type of alcohol that acts as a drug and is produced by fermentation of grains, fruits, or other sources of sugar. The c ...

s ( beer in pub culture, or wine in wine bars, for example) *

Marijuana Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names, is a psychoactive drug from the cannabis plant. Native to Central or South Asia, the cannabis plant has been used as a drug for both recreational and entheogenic purposes and in various tra ...

* MDMA * Coffee (in coffee cultures, for example) * Tea (at tea parties, for example) * Tobacco (in

cigarette A cigarette is a narrow cylinder containing a combustible material, typically tobacco, that is rolled into thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end, causing it to smolder; the resulting smoke is orally inhaled via the opp ...

s or a

hookah A hookah (Hindustani language, Hindustani: (Nastaleeq), (Devanagari), IPA: ; also see #Names and etymology, other names), shisha, or waterpipe is a single- or multi-stemmed instrument for heating or vaporizing and then smoking either tobacco ...

, for example) * Small talk (informal discourse or conversation, for example) *

Mobile images Mobile may refer to: Places * Mobile, Alabama, a U.S. port city * Mobile County, Alabama * Mobile, Arizona, a small town near Phoenix, U.S. * Mobile, Newfoundland and Labrador Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels * Mobile ...

(Cf. Hjorth, Larissa and Pink, Sara. 2014. “New Visualities and the Digital Wayfarer: Reconceptualizing Camera Phone Photography and Locative Media”. Mobile Media & Communication, 2 (1): 40–57.) "Social lubricant" is sometimes used as a euphemism for a bribe or other improper payment. Referring to alcohol or marijuana as "social lubricants" has been criticized because they have negative effects on empathy. Alcohol is especially known for this and has the potential to increase aggression and cause disputes or violence.

See also