No, I don’t mind, it’s just really complicated. Bear in mind that nothing I’ve said about the issue is right on the mark, that’s not to say I’m lying, but that depending on my mood and various factors it tends to one side of the scale over the other. For example my “few exceptions” clause covers a pretty big gulf where I was pretty happy from July-Dec of last year where I was actually pretty socially active. By “social event” I mean parties (birthday parties, typical college parties, etc), which to be honest don’t interest me much anyway, the one in 5th grade was an Elementary School “graduation” dance/party which I didn’t really like, and due to various factors I kind of drifted away from friends in middle school and never really made new ones. I’ve been with one or two friends playing Rock Band or something from time to time, just except for that one gulf it’s been very, very sporadic. I don’t really have any contact info of most of the people I talk to at school, even when everybody else in the circle has it, don’t get invited to anything, and my brain freaks out if I try to invite someone to something or ask them for their phone number/IM/whatever. It also doesn’t help that (and I’m not sure why, but it happens) I usually end up trying to distance myself from people or end up freaking out if I’m enjoying someone’s company too much.
I’ve tried to type up my exact situation before, it just always ends up really unorganized and confusing. I can try a more thorough approach if you’re still curious, I actually kind of want to post it, I’ve just never been able to execute it well in a way that makes sense. Though maybe it’s just because my feelings are inherently illogical and it becomes even more apparent in print.
I’m not Mr Spock but I am towards the over-serious end of the scale. I have more fun at parties and on social occasions if I have some drinks. A dear friend once said of me at a party that there was nothing wrong with me that a few drinks didn’t cure and everyone there agreed. She meant it positively and I took it as such, but there is no doubt she was also subtly confirming that there *was *something slightly wrong with me when I hadn’t had a few drinks:D.
That may well be a failing you don’t suffer from. Good for you if so.
My lack of desire to drink is re-affirmed constantly. One of my better clients is a pair of sports bars, and as I’m working I have continual contact with people who are drinking. The quality of the conversation is abysmal. Alcohol makes people stupid, and I’ve never understood the appeal of self-administered stupidity.
In the same way, I’ve never accepted that consuming this stupidity-inducing poison actually makes people more friendly and convivial. It seems to make them noisy and belligerent instead.
Uhh, what do you expect for a sports bar though? Culturally-enlightening discussions about world politics? Alcohol itself doesn’t make smart people stupid. It enhances underlying stupidity. And I think it’s a bad data point to make your assumption about alcohol based on conversations overheard at a sports bar, a locale not known to attract the brightest of brights in the first place.
And the whole holier-than-thou attitude because I don’t consume alcohol is so lame, as is attempting to spin it by calling it poison. People have been drinking alcohol for thousands of years, and society has done pretty well in spite of it. Get over it. Sure, some people get loud, obnoxious, and stupid when drunk, but just as many people get friendlier and nicer. There are no universal absolutes.
And think about how much further ahead we could have been if there wasn’t any alcohol? How many people are killed each year by drunk drivers? Sorry, your argument doesn’t make any sense, so you must be drinking to have made it.
And sorry to the OP for the hijack of this thread.
Yeah, we could all drink Shirley Temples and sit around and sing Kum-bah-yah around campfires. Gee golly, the world would be absolutely swell without any of that liquid poison!
But seriously, such a question is pointless since it’s impossible to know all the benefits alcohol has provided society. How many people would go on rampages if they weren’t able to have a cocktail at the end of the day to release some of their stress? And drunk driving deaths wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for cars having been invented, so clearly cars are to blame.
I’m pretty sure I once read that Agriculture was really started to make beer/wine. (at least a primary reason) Of course this may just be one of those things people talk about but has no real evidence.
I personally don’t understand why “holier-than-thou” teetotalers feel all superior to us drinkers. Of course I don’t understand the idea that people that don’t drink are boring or some sort of nutcases. There are a lot of recovering alcoholics that don’t drink because it causes them problems with life or whatnot, and there are religious folk that don’t drink, but also don’t push it onto others (publicly anyway, my parents for instance still talk smack about drinkers in private).
Wow, what a way to claim I’m biased…by showing a greater level of bias. Plenty of highly intelligent people are huge sports fans. My point is that these people appear far less intelligent when drinking.
See above. Not all my bar experiences are limited to this sports bar. I’ve installed and serviced audio, video and satellite equipment for decades and have worked in every sort of bar environment. And in none of them have I witnessed any evidence that alcohol does anything other than make reasonably intelligent people less so.
Seriously, where would you expect to overhear an intelligent conversation - any bar, or any coffee shop?
Only time I’ve been punched in the mouth was by a drunk cab driver.
I think the technical term is “bullshit”.
Agriculture was about saving labor. Gathering specific plants in one place is easier than roving all over the countryside looking for them constantly. Alcoholic beverages were probably a side effect of trying to preserve grain and grapes.
You’re in a thread titled “I’ve never been drunk. You?” and you seem surprised to find people talking about how they’ve never been drunk, people who are proud of that fact and people who dislike people when they’re drunk?
I hear intelligent conversations in the bar all the time. My favorite bars are the ones with the best regulars because we have such great conversations. But I suppose you know what you’re talking about because you installed some TVs at some sports bar full of idiots.
I’m utterly baffled that you think he was literally welcoming you to the board. He’s saying that it’s the nature of the board that this thread would attract people who don’t drink. It’s like saying “Welcome to Earth!” if someone were complaining about jerks.
