My experience might not be relevant, as I’m in the UK - and drinking cultures are not the same the world over, but I’ve found it to be about 50/50 - half the time it’s as you describe; the other half of the time, it’s just someone who is a heavy drinker and part of their psychological makeup is simple failure to grasp that not everyone else is the same (or it could be denial, in the sense of “what I’m doing is normal”)
This has been my experience, heavy drinkers want you to drink as much as they do, and will be varying levels of insistent that you do (both pleasant and unpleasant).
I must hang out with strange people. I quit drinking 13 years ago (medical reasons) and in all that time I have never had a host or anyone else get offended when I declined their offer of their really great bottle of wine, cold beer, fine whiskey or jello shot.
I get through events quite well with iced tea, soft drinks or water.
Why do people on the SDMB constantly need advice on how not to be cool?
No. That is not acceptable.
What is acceptable?
Well, in my case I blame advancing age, and with it the fact that I don’t particularly care about being cool anymore 
Why not?
“Wahsuh matter - too good to drink with ush!?”
just say I’ll have another drink if you let me drive you home
Alcoholic here: Every (veteran) drunk knows there’s straight talk and then there’s drunk talk.
Straight talk can obviously be taken at face value.
Drunk talk, on the other hand, should be completely omitted and never acknowledged after you wake up sober the next morning. So when you’re hammered and you get into a conversation with your buddy about how, at 40+ years of age, you guys should join a hockey team to relive your youth, and to teach these young 20-somethings what’s what, DO NOT under any circumstances try to continue this conversation the next day when you are sober. Because your friend will just look at you like you’re crazy. Not because he doesn’t remember the conversation, because he does. It’s just an understood fact that drunk talk is just that; drunk talk.
By the same token, your friend getting all pissy because you wont drink with him, will have blown it off to drunk talk by the next morning.
*That hockey story was an actual conversation I had with a friend of mine. I had a good chuckle about it the next day. I mean seriously, hockey?
Soda water with a twist of lime. Knocking back a few cokes or tonic waters is not really doable for me, but I can drink soda water until the cows come home.
No.
This is neither funny nor intelligent.
I agree with being assertive. I have said “no, if I have another one I won’t be able to stand up.” And if you need excuses there are all sorts in addition to driving. Alcohol tends to be pretty high in calories - so “I’m trying to lose weight and have had one too many for my diet already” SOMETIMES works.
But generally, no. No, thank you. No. I appreciate the offer, but no. Repeat as necessary. And you know, there is usually someone at the other side of the room at these things that you haven’t seen for years that you need to say hello to if it gets obnoxious. As well as all those drinks usually mean a trip to the bathroom sooner or later, and if on your way back you get involved in another conversation…
I love threads on the SD that have to do with normal social situations. They are always fun.
- 1
It should be: I’ll have another if I can have your keys now and drive YOUR car home.
How about :“You pay the bar tab and I’ll pay for the cab.”
+1, which is just a reminder of how socially awkward, a large % of this board appears to be.
I think this is true and I should remind myself of it before responding sometimes. It can be awkward to refuse hospitality, no matter how ill conceived it is. But drinking alcohol should come with enough self-confidence to say “no” to people.
I don’t drink, but when someone tries to push seconds of food or something on me and I don’t want it, I remain firm. No thanks. If they still try to push it, well, I’ll get progressively aggressive from there. But under no circumstances will I take something I don’t want. If they take offense, tough shit, I’m offended that you think you know better than me what I should consume.
I have a very low tolerance for Alcohol. It makes me violently ill and interferes with my BP medicine. As much as I’d like to spend the rest of my evening vomiting with a runaway pulse rate I’ll have to pass. Or some such retort.
“I’m on medication, I need to be careful! Thanks, but it will have to be another time!”
I feel your pain. I’m dangerously close to being a a complete abstainer!