I relate this whole thing to my annual Thanksgiving dilemma.
The scene: whatever Thanksgiving table I’ve ever sat at.
The year: pick one, anywhere from 1965 to present - in fact, pick them all.
“Jack, would you like some sweet potatoes?”
“No thanks. I don’t like sweet potatoes.”
“Why don’t you try them?”
“Ferchrisakes, fine. Hey, whaddayaknow … still don’t like them.”
Every. Fucking. Year. For my entire life.
I just wish my relatives would stop forcing their starchy vices on me like that. I don’t need any orange vegetables on my plate to enjoy my meal. The pricks.
Right. Which is why you took the offended drinkers to task in this thread. Or is it just that non-drinkers are supposed to give drinkers the benefit of the doubt, but it doesn’t work the other way?
For all of you who don’t get this: Alcohol has an effect in the mouth. I don’t care if you call it “taste” or what you call it, but it’s detectable and for some of us it’s really unpleasant. If I have the occasional drink, it’s despite that horrible taste/feeling/whathaveyou.
If you had no idea this was true, you now know. Further claims of ignorance aren’t plausible.
If you’d care to show me the examples of offended drinkers, I would see if I think their behavior was unacceptable to me. But I was responding to those who think being offered a different tasting variety of something they say they don’t like the taste of is a capital offense.
Well, to be fair, the OP did call it taste. And I have said multiple times if you give another reason, or indeed no reason, for not wanting a drink, anyone should end the conversation there. However, if the reason given is not liking the taste, then it opens the door. And, if we are all about being civil here, if you said that anything with alcohol in it has a horrible taste/feeling/whathaveyou, then I would apologize for offering you something else, and ask if I could get you a soda. Or juice. Or milk. Or water. Or tea or coffee.
If your idea of being reasonable and civil is to read the worst case scenario into what the overwhelming majority of people intend as a kind gesture, then I would hate to see you be pissy.
I can understand how it can be taken that way in certain circumstances. I’m not advocating that everyone needs to adopt a hand-wringing attitude for fear of insulting someone, only that “Are you open to suggestions?” or something similar is not stupid or redundant. Should I go ahead and kick your dog while I’m at it? That would make your reaction a bit more reasonable.
You know, unless you’re autistic, it’s possible to read body language and tone of voice to gauge whether or not you should take extra polite steps to avoid offending someone unnecessarily. Not everyone reacts the same way to a given scenario, and it’s shortsighted and narrow-minded to assume they do or they should. It’s neither difficult nor weak to adapt your personal manners to match that of the person you’re talking to.
You want me to point out offended drinkers and then claim the non-drinkers think the drinkers should be killed.
I have a feeling my hyperbole can’t compete with yours.
He called it the taste because for those of us who have it, it’s perceived as a taste. You can whip out some scientific something and claim it isn’t a taste, but it’s still what I and others perceive as a taste.
He called it a taste because he thinks it’s a taste. I call it a taste because I think it’s a taste. Maybe it’s a sensation. Maybe it’s a mouth feel. But what it seems like is a taste.
If someone tells you they don’t like like the taste of alcohol, they are probably in the same category as I and the OP are. There’s a something to alcohol that seems an awful lot like “taste” and we’re going to call it taste because that’s what it seems to be. Some people love the “taste.” Some people hate the “taste.” Is it really taste or is it “taste”? I don’t know. I don’t really care. It appears that scientists think there’s a taste. But whether it’s a taste or a “taste” it’s unpleasant for me.
Have I ever minded someone offering me a drink? No more than I’ve ever minded someone offering something else. Meaning: Not at all unless they won’t take no for an answer.
So, to sum up: Chocolate haters can probably taste the chocolate in mole. Don’t offer it without warning if there’s any chance they don’t know there’s chocolate in there.
Alcohol has a taste or a “taste.” It doesn’t matter if you can’t taste it.
Cilantro is delicious while mint is evil.
The Dodgers have signed Jamey Carroll to a two-year deal.
Not trying to be an ass, and it was obvious hyperbole, but I really don’t know what you mean when you are talking about offended drinkers in here. People have responded in an offended manner to the OP’s apparent belief that all drinking alcohol is about is getting drunk and acting the fool. To me, that is understandable offense. It’s a genuine question - what offended drinkers are you talking about.
And where has anyone supported repeatedly pushing it and not taking no for an answer? The person who pushes anything like that is an ass. I just honestly have not seen it more from drinkers than from others. And I have spent a lot of time with drinkers - 25 years or so in bars, 9 of them working behind the counter.
Have you spent time as a non-drinker among drinkers?
The older I get, the less often I encounter pushy drinkers, but they have existed in my life. Usually they aren’t people I know well.
As for where it’s being supported, there are defenses offered for the behavior ranging from the non-drinkers are childish to the OP deserves it for being a jerk to the pushers have no way of knowing that when we say we don’t like alcohol we mean we don’t like alcohol to claims that by not drinking we’re showing an inability to have or be fun to ivn taking offense at someone not wanting to drink and SFG’s contention that if you don’t push your likes on people you’re “tedious” and “boring.”
Of course, it’s a dope thread, which means that people are prone to Dio-ing and claiming way more rigid positions than is realistic.
The OP sounds like a chucklehead. Many others (not you) sound ridiculously defensive.
Ain’t nothin’ wrong with being arrogant when I’m right. Which I am. All the time. About everything. Please don’t bother to search the boards for a time when I was wrong; it’s never happened. Ever. :shifty eyes:
Note, my response to you was not a completely accurate portrayal of my opinion. However, you were being snooty at me, so I was being snooty right back, giving you what I felt would be a valid corrolary to what you’d posted. Not so much fun when you’re on the receiving end, is it?
Exactly. All abstinence from alcohol is exactly the same, while there is a nigh-infinite variety of ways to injest alcohol, both in terms of content and volume. It goes back to the “I don’t like blueberries” versus “I don’t like baked goods” comparison–there’s a difference between something that’s universally consistent and a broad category.
IMO: “I’m HIV positive!” and then break down sobbing. Bonus points if you can make yourself cry hard enough that you kind of drool and snot comes running out your nose. Guaranteed to get you a half-day vacation, at the very least.
Invalid comparison. Every instance of not drinking alcohol is exactly the same, while, as observed above, many alcoholic drinks vary very wildly in taste, mouthfeel, alcohol content, etc. Even when there are faily narrow categories that I know I don’t like (any Riesling I’ve met so far but a dry one, these days, for example), if a friend thinks I might enjoy this particular one, if I haven’t had it before, I’ll try at least a sip.
I did think it was funny, actually. Thanks for catching *my *joke.
That’s actually a really good comparison. When I try to get a friend who’s never had it to try sushi, and they tell me they don’t like it (often when they’ve never had it), I’ll suggest starting with something like a vegetable roll, a California roll (no raw fish, just cooked crab), or an unagi roll (eel, but cooked). So if someone explained that it was specifically the mouthfeel of the rice (that vinegared rice being the actual defining aspect of sushi), I’d absolutely 100% drop it, because they’ve now given me a specific thing that they don’t like, as opposed to some vague hand-waving that leaves open the possibility that if they tried the right sushi, they might indeed enjoy it quite a bit.
You should have. Dogs are gross.
Good point.
Then don’t tell people you hate the taste, because that’s not accurate, and it leaves an opening whereby they can truly and honestly believe that you just haven’t yet found a drink that will taste good to you. Say that it’s the mouthfeel/texture/whatever of the alcohol itself.
Yeah? If I weren’t having fun, I would leave the thread.
I’m sorry if you think I’m wounded or something. I’ll work up a sobbing suicide note if you like. I think I’ll use darkenesse as a theme.
As for calling what I dislike the “taste,” only on this board do people claim not to know what that means. It’s right up there with the people who say they can’t even understand sentences that aren’t punctuated according to Strunk and White. What I perceive is a taste. It’s an unpleasant taste. I’ve never in my life met someone who can’t understand that, but the dope is all about the exceptionalism.
Absolutely. 9 years as a bartender. And I can remember 2 occasions on which I had a drink while at work.
I think that is what guns was saying - instead that one should seek to share (a very different meaning than push) ones likes with people. And I will give you ivn. Please. Take him.
And honestly, I do think the OP deserves it. He comes across as incredibly sanctimonious. And the whole thing about being willing to drink to see a girl’s breasts. Jeez - man up. No one makes you drink in a strip club and she will even shake them in your face.
I’ve have nothing against non-drinkers. Some of my closest friends are non-drinkers for a variety of reasons. But the OP isn’t a non-drinker in that way.
There’s a reason people get defensive. They are doing something they conceive of as nice - offering someone a drink, or reacting to a person saying, in their opinion, that they have not yet found a drink they like by suggesting possibilities. And in response, they are getting told their are rude, pushy and obnoxious. Now, continuously haranguing someone (unless they are a sanctimonious prig who is willing to drink to see boobies) about it is unacceptable behavior, and I think everyone in this thread would agree. But I can honestly say I have seen that side of things far less often than I have seen teetotallers preaching about how evil alcohol is. Or putting pressure on people not to serve alcohol at a social event.
This guy was a big 100% participation kind of chap. He dressed me down in front of my colleagues for not giving blood, telling me I could not have a legitimate reason. My reason was that I am British, and lived in the UK through the mad-cow scare, so they won’t take my blood. But to publically demand to know whywhen many of the reasons (religious, disease, sexuality) are protected categories is incredibly fucking dumb of him.
He did the same to me when I was the sole hold out against giving to the United Way (because of their annoying tactics and their support of the Boy Scouts). I got in a stand up shouting match with him over that one, and challenged him to compare tax returns to see who gave a higher percentage of their income to charity. Guess who got fired when they needed to cut back the sales staff? Best thing that ever happened to me.
Hey, let’s do United Way campaigns now! My husband had three separate people pestering him to contribute to the UW campaign this year (with some emphasis on the fact that as the sole hold-out in his project, he was denying everyone else their 100% participation gift). He was going to write a letter to the last person who bothered him and express his surprise and dismay at being singled out like that, being pressured like that, and having his privacy ignored like that.
Sure, and there’s a reason non-drinkers get annoyed. They are doing something they conceive of as justified–refusing a drink because they don’t want one. And in response they are getting told that they are childish, boring, or at fault for not saying “mouth feel.”
I just went around to my coworkers and told them I didn’t like the “mouth feel” of alcohol. Every single one of them wanted to know what the fuck that meant.