evlkitty didn’t drink coffee when we first met. She didn’t like the taste. Turns out, she’d only ever had drip Folgers that had been scorching on a hotpad for several hours. So when I got her to try some freshly ground Verona prepared in a coffee press as part of a complete breakfast following an absolutely marvelous 12-hour first date, well, she loves coffee now.
As for the OP, real drinkers are always looking for a guy who will be able to drive at the end of the night. Maybe your friends are jerks, or maybe you’re just moderately frustrated about something that doesn’t really bug you all that much. I dunno. But I like the sound of Goku drinkers. I’m kinda like a Goku coffee drinker: The stronger and darker, the better.
It could be that your friends are used to people not drinking for moral, rather than taste preference, reasons. In my neck of the woods, religion (Christianity in all cases) is the primary reason people say that they do not drink. To them, it is immoral (although Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine at Cana, but I digress) to consume alcohol because it affects judgment, and that could lead to sin. Other people simply say they don’t want to get drunk and embarrass themselves, so they don’t drink at all. In both of these cases, a refusal to drink puts the drinkers on the defensive, as others have said, and makes them feel as if they have to justify a lifestyle rather than a taste preference. But I live in a very conservative part of the country, so that may not be the problem where you live.
I definitely think there’s a “bitter taste bud” correlation with people who don’t like the taste of alcohol or coffee. I’m the same way. I WILL drink fruity drinks all day long but I have never ever ever ever tasted a beer I like. And I can’t do coffee in any form.
And no, it’s not that I haven’t found the right beer yet. Because, being that I don’t like beer, people always have me taste their beer. Their faces get all twisted up when I tell them that honestly their microbrew tastes the same as my dad’s Natural Ice.
Anyway, if people keep harassing you about drinking you must be doing it wrong. Just tell them to STFU. Or get a Coke in a rocks glass with a stirrer. Or hold on to a half glass of wine. Or tell them you’re on meds and can’t drink with them.
What I like to do is just pretend that I’m fucking drunk. No one needs to know you’re not. You get to have all the fun of being uninhibited without actually ponying up for a drink.
People who are concerned about whether or how much other people drink have an alcohol problem. They want others to drink so they feel more normal. People without problems give absolutely no thought to how much others are drinking.
I feel for the OP, I’ve had the same experiences, although I do like to drink on occasion. But on occasions where I didn’t want to drink I always drove. Convenient excuse. Although now that I’m in my mid-30s it rarely comes up any more.
I know what you go through. I didn’t drink in college, and I was in a fraternity. It was practically unheard of. My reasons were partially religious (I didn’t want to be out of control); and partially because, being under 21, it was against the law.
But for the most part, people respected my choice. I’d be offered beer several times a night, but it usually only took one “No thanks, I don’t drink” and everything was fine. Sometimes people apologized and sometimes they expressed admiration (but it may have been the booze talking :))
Maybe you need to hang out with cooler people, if they don’t stop at “No thanks.”
Try what one of my friends used to do: order a beer* and just hold it all night. Nobody’s going to offer you a drink if you’ve already got one.
Whatever you do, either don’t give a reason why you don’t want a drink or claim to be the designated driver. Saying you don’t like the taste is practically an invitation. (Try the irish coffee!)
This girl that I had a thing for said that for every drink I took, she’d let me play with her tits.
:rolleyes: Different topic, different circumstances
I was kidding!
Nah, it can’t be that. They all know I’m the most evil one of the bunch! Just for some reason, that doesn’t extend to excessive alcohol. By every right, I should be wearing black eyeliner, cutting my wrists, and drinking into a stupor because I come off as that kind of person. But I’m actually quite clean. I don’t do drugs, never smoke pot, but have picked up a dead animal and stuck it into a school locker because I thought it was cool. That’s a whole different story though
Took the words right out of my mouth. Pay good attention to everything in this post, OP.
I do believe that was a solid zing. Might I offer you a high five?
It’s gonna be a lonely Christmas for Cthulhu.
Oh my god, are you okay? Is your neck getting sore? I hope you have some kind of a brace, or you might end up with serious damage from trying to hold your nose that fucking high up in the air.
You free on Friday? I have to go to Mr. Neville’s work holiday party, and I won’t be able to drink there because I’ll have to drive home. Somebody will probably bring some wine that I’d like, but as it is now I won’t be able to have any.
Perhaps this is an overgeneralization, but there’s a lot of truth in it. I don’t like being around people who are getting drunk since they are usually loud and act stupidly, and it makes sense that they’d feel self-conscious about behaving idiotically around people who will notice.
Obviously the solution is to flavor these beverages with cilantro.
I’m right there with the OP. My biggest drinking spree of all time was two beers, at a local microbrewery, because their beer was actually tolerable. For the most part, I avoid alcohol, because I never got a taste for it and I’m really not interested in developing one; it seems counterproductive to me to drink something that just makes me thirstier.
Drinkers do seem to be pushy about drinking, and I’m not sure why; it’s as though they feel the social situation is being threatened if someone there has opted not to drink. It’s weird. And I do usually get the additional pressuring, the “why not” or “come on, try some” if I turn down an offered drink. Fortunately, one phrase I’ve come up with to explain why I don’t drink usually seems to work: “I have enough expensive habits already.” That usually gets a chuckle and turns off the pressure.
Please elaborate? Because what DCMS says is roughly sensible as far as armchair psychology goes, and while I love reading Guns’ insults, they don’t really make for substantial discussion.
