Yes, very different cultures. Literally the only parties I’ve ever been invited to where i assumed there would be alcohol is the Passover Seder. I guess i expect wine and liquor at a bris, too, but I’ve only been to a handful of those. Oh, and “corporate social functions”. Those usually come with two drink tickets. Most weddings have a bar, but I’ve been to some that didn’t, and i don’t recall being told in advance. I don’t think I’ve ever been offered a drink at a child’s birthday party. A game party i attend usually has beer, but i was slightly surprised by that. Adult birthday parties, baby showers, etc. vary. I’m not surprised either way.
This sounds like the woman has a problem meriting intervention. Seriously, that’s a bad sign.
If someone asks you to not bring alcohol into their home, you just don’t. It doesn’t hurt you.
I think this more what I was thinking of earlier in thread when I remarked on the lack of a middle ground when talking about alcohol.
“reaching for the bottle” has quite a negative connatation but if you meet with a friend over lunch, dinner, parties etc. and they happen to always have a small amount of drink when you do so, that isn’t a cause for concern (and I wouldn’t call that “reaching for the bottle”)
yep, very different. depending on the time of day I don’t think I’ve been to many kids parties where a drink was not on offer for the adults.
Just by you mentioning the time of day, I think you’re talking about ( or at least including ) a different type of kid party than I am. I’m not talking about the kind for a really little kid ( say a one or two year ) old that’s really a party for adults - those have alcohol. I’m talking about the ones for older kids , who know what’s going on and have invited their friends, that might be at a party place or involve renting a bouncy house. That I’m invited to either because I’m a close relative of the birthday child or because my kids were guests. Those don’t involve alcohol.
I dunno. When my husband’s grandmother was hospitalized for some random thing, they asked her is she drank, and she said, “I have a glass of wine in the afternoon”. Then she developed the DTs. I never saw the woman drunk, but her body was used to a constant supply of alcohol and it was actually a medical emergency when it was deprived of that.
(I assume she drank more than just that glass of wine every afternoon, of course. But I have no idea how much she drank, because socially it wasn’t an issue.)
To me, the middle ground is people who can take it or leave it. One extreme is teetotalers, who never drink. The other extreme is people who need to drink at any and all social events. There are healthy productive people at both extremes. But if you don’t want to go to a social event because it will be dry, I think you are stating that you are in one of the extremes.
no, not really in my experience. I think the expectation in the UK for any party for kids of any age where parents are invited along as well, would be for alcohol to be offered. Certainly at someone’s house. If it was at a neutral venue (like a soft play area or similar) that was providing food and drink and didn’t serve alcohol anyway, then you’d probably not expect it. But at a private house? Yes, alcohol would definitely be the overwhelming norm.
Which to me would also include people who pretty much always have a small amount because they enjoy it and then stop and then have no more.
To me it it would generally include people who pretty much always have a drink or two - but at the point where you refuse to attend if there’s no booze, I don’t think that’s "take it or leave it " anymore. “Take it or leave it” doesn’t simply mean not getting drunk.
You may be right, I think I am suffering from simply having no experience of having to ever consider it. It is a stretch hypothetical for me and I’m having trouble computing it. Perhaps a beer would help.
I was recently at an afternoon birthday party for a couple of grade school age children, bouncy houses and all; and there were large bearded men with lots of ink tenderly cuddling small children in one arm and holding a beer in the other. (Also of course women; and lots of children of all ages.) It was a really good party.
I have also been to parties with no booze whatsoever that were really good parties.
I’ve been invited out to lunch or dinner with friends and nobody had anything alcoholic. Sometimes the venue didn’t serve anything, sometimes it was somebody’s house and nothing alcoholic was among the offerings.
I’ve also been invited to lunch or dinner by friends and offered wine, or beer, or a choice of either and a batch of assorted whisky etc. Sometimes it was the same friends as in the previous paragraph. I’m no more taken aback by this than I am that sometimes a given person will provide a steak and other times a casserole – maybe even a vegetarian casserole. Nor do I think I need advance notice, any more than I need advance notice of the food menu. (If my own menu were restricted, then I might ask about the food, prefacing this by explaining why – but if theirs is, or if they just feel like having eggplant parm or for that matter non-parm that night instead of steak or hamburgers, that’s up to them.)
I get the impression from some in this thread that they feel about being invited to dinner, or even lunch, and then not being offered alcohol the same as they would about being invited to dinner and then not being offered anything to eat. Is that what’s going on?
I think the UK thing is a huge difference. I’ve spent most of my career working with Brits (and the Irish), and alcohol is just part of every day existence in a way that is incomprehensible to us in the U.S. We knew that they guys would be in the pub from 5-6:30 London time. I once helped three drunk Irishmen get a server back operational at 8pm Dublin time (that accent does not get easier to understand after a few pints). Even the biggest drinkers and happy hour attendees I’ve worked with would go out only on Thursday and Friday nights in the U.S. And you do NOT drink at lunch unless you want to not have a job. But visiting London for work…all bets are off.
I suspect part of this is the litigious nature of U.S. business. Early in my career I worked for Grand Met (now Diageo) - and because the execs were all expat Brits, the booze flowed freely (it IS a liquor company) early on. A few settlements over sexual harassment and drunk driving later - the host can be held liable in the U.S. - and the booze flowed a lot less freely at company events. Different company by the time they divested Pillsbury (although right up until the end, the Brits were drinking every night - the Americans on Thursday and Friday).
I think the best analogy for me would be closer to getting invited to a dinner and showing up and the host saying I had to walk backwards all night. Sure I can do it with out any challenge but it makes the party more annoying and the people there would have to be amazing for me to put up with it.
I can’t imagine a party where adults were invited because their kids were guests where booze wasn’t offered to them. Sure if you’re having a birthday party for a 15 year old and the parents are just dropping kids off and the only adults are there to make sure nothing crazy happens then I can see no booze. Otherwise talk about the definition of a party where I don’t like half of the guests. The screaming (with joy) children at the last couple of 6 year old birthday parties have certainly made me want to drink.
See, that sort of thing is why people are saying that if you have to be able to drink to be at their party, then you must not want to actually be at their party. I wouldn’t go to a party where I expected to dislike half the people; and I certainly wouldn’t want to be at a party where I thought a significant number of the people disliked me.
Why go to a party that’s going to have a lot of children if you don’t like being around children?
I have children and they like children.
When i had kids in elementary school, parents just dropped off their kids at children’s parties. It wouldn’t be weird if a friend of the hosts stayed to help out, but most of the parents just went home, and tended their other kids, or whatever.
I think so. The company I’ve worked for for many years is multinational and I’ve spent loads of time in the USA, Germany, Italy and Ireland particularly. In all bar the USA social drinking to various extents is very much the norm. In Germany and France the company canteen served beer and wine (In Italy they have espresso vending machines dotted throughout the factories, offices and labs).
However, the wierdest drink scenario I ever had was when I was teaching a course in Puerto Rico. The first day of the course we stopped for a mid-morning break and…lo and behold, outside the room the hotel had set up a daquiri bar ready to serve fresh drinks to anyone who wanted one. And yes they were fully loaded. Several people were already tucking in, can’t blame them. I cut the break shorter than normal “because of pressures of time” and asked the management, quietly, to keep the morning and afternoon breaks strictly non-alcoholic but feel free to roll out the booze when we’d finished for the day.
I’ve no idea if that was just a hotel manager seeking to impress us and get more business or was it a Puerto Rican thing? I found it amusing either way.
Having helped out at multiple small children parties, though I don’t drink for any self-medication purposes, I’d have to say that some degree of intoxication is pretty much necessary to block out the trauma.
Nike serves beer in their cafeteria - but not until after 4 or something (I don’t remember the specifics). But its not UNHEARD of for corporations to not be puritan in their attitudes. Its just not the norm that social events are almost always social drinking events, and the amount of drinking that is normal in Europe in a work environment is pretty rare here (with apparently the exception of some of the worst of the Dudebro Corporations. I suspect there was a freewheeling supply of booze for the right people at least at WeWork, Uber, etc.). And the amount of social drinking that happens at purely social events also seems to be less. It isn’t at all unusual to go to dry events - if I went to say a baby shower or a wedding shower, I wouldn’t expect alcohol, but there is a CHANCE it would be there. (Now a bachelor or bachelorette party - you expect a LOT of alcohol)