I learned about relationships at a German Christmas sing-along

Maybe it could have been Central Park or in Whole Foods or on a Sunday morning at Sarabeth's, but for me it happened at a German beer hall.  It was a Sunday night in December and I was with my friend and her male friend that might have been trying to be more than her friend.  We had come to the German beer hall to take part in the night's Christmas sing-along.  And so, it seemed, had at least half of  the East Village. The place, which seemed like it would have felt cramped even on its slowest night, was packed with Christmas crazed revelers.  People at tables stood atop their chairs or on the tables themselves, and everyone else was pressed together, with waiters in Lederhosen squeezed, with trays filled with liters of Hofbrau beer raised over their heads.  In spite of the lack of space and the ever looming possibility of beer sloshing down onto one's head, everyone seemed happy.  Everyone was energetically singing along to every Christmas classic song the small, wrinkled man with the microphone and his younger, taller, accordion playing partner chose.  And when the man with the microphone insisted that the bar's entire kitchen staff to join in the singing "Feliz Navidad," everyone gladly made room for the shy, smiling men who were at first barely audible in their mumbling of the song, but by the end were singing perfectly clearly and on beat with every "prospero ano y felizidad."  Even the type of lone, hovering man that would be creepy in most bars, was just a jolly fellow who enjoyed singing "Deck the hall with bows of holly" and drinking mulled wine.
I felt like I had stepped into the drunk adult version of what would have been my child self's perfect Christmas.  Few things have ever been able to make me as happy as Christmas songs do, and a room full of people who feel the same was as much as I would have ever asked for.  
While we sang, my eyes took in the scene.  The people standing atop the tables were the loudest, the drunkest, and the most fun.  I wished I was one of them.  When one of them fell down, hitting the bar floor with a loud thud, the man with the microphone shouted "another beer!" and everyone cheered.  Some of the people atop the tables were groups of middle aged and just plain aged friends, some looked like they were my age.  One group was a large family with two preteen girls.  
There were also several couples of various ages.  One couple descended from their stance atop the table near the bar where I sat and asked my friend to take a picture of them.  I watched their smiling faces on their i-phone screen as my friend snapped a picture that cut off the tops of their heads but still captured the feeling.  And I watched them kiss after they looked over the picture approvingly.  But mostly, I watched a couple that stood with their friends atop a table across the room from where I sat.  The couple wore matching blue and white reindeer picture wool sweaters.  They both kept their liters of beer constantly raised in good cheer.  Together they were the loudest, most exuberant of all the singers.  They made their reindeer sweaters look cool.  When it came time for everyone to sing "The Twelve Days of Christmas," their shouts of  "two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree" rang out over the crowd.  
Watching them, I realized what I want -- though, really, I had known it all along.  I want what it looked like they had.  I want a love that is also my best friend.  
Of course, maybe they don't have what I have.  Maybe they don't have overwhelmingly passionate sexual chemistry.  Maybe to them a taxi is just a means of getting from one place to the next. Maybe they don't have great cuddles or cute very, very, deep inside jokes.  But maybe they do.  
Watching them, I thought of the people I knew who are in serious relationships.  Each of them is best friends with his or her significant other.  I have a feeling that they probably have boring sex because they have relationships founded on friendship instead of passion, but if that's what it takes to be with a man who wants to get up on a table and sing Christmas songs with me, then maybe passion isn't really what I need -- or want.  
Until that moment during the sing-along in the German beer hall, I had thought that enduring passion was a sign of something deeper that's worth fighting for, but maybe it's not.  
So later that night, when the man who had been talking to me over the course of the evening said he felt he had a connection with me, I didn't make fun of him for saying "connection," instead I just laughed and nodded in hopeful agreement.  And when he asked me how I normally pick up men, I changed the subject.  For the first time in years, I didn't quote Woody Allen paraphrasing Groucho Marx saying, "I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member."  I'm ready to belong to club that would have someone like me for a member.