Not Drinking

I don't drink. I don't mind if you do, but I don't. Is that okay?

Now, when I say I don't drink, I mean that I don't drink alcohol. If I didn't drink anything, I imagine I'd dehydrate.

I should make it clear that it's not a big lifestyle statement, and nor is it because I'm opposed to it. It's just that I can't stand the taste of any alcoholic beverage. I've tried a bunch at various times, and they all tasted uniformly awful. People who fancied themselves bartenders because they owned more than one kind of vermouth would find me at parties and mix up something rum-based, claiming that the alcohol was completely undetactable. And, of course, it wasn't.

And the claims of how tasty the various cocktails would be were frequently just ludicrous. Bailey's Irish Cream does not taste "just like a chocolate milkshake." And while I don't know exactly what "liquid bubblegum" would taste like, I'm pretty sure that Jagermeister isn't it.

So that's where I'm coming from: not a drinker. And I reiterate that it's not because I look down on those who do drink, it's just that I can't stand the stuff. On my twenty-first birthday, I tried many different beverages, and I just couldn't force that stuff down my throat. Ick.

I've taken a lot of guff over the years for not drinking, and it doesn't seem quite fair. I'm always the designated driver, which means that I'm the one with the nigh-comatose, vomiting-prone party-hounds in my backseat. There was a drinking contest in college featuring the humor newspaper (where I worked) versus the "real" newspaper. As one of the only two people on either staff that didn't drink, I got keg duty. It was my job to fill shot glasses with beer over and over again. And to have beer spilled on me. And to have people lurching into me. And to watch people with frankly very little common sense keep drinking until their lips turned blue. It was really a very unpleasant night.

So I haven't seen much to make me desperate to start drinking back then. After parties, I get my entertainment by standing over moaning people and asking loudly, "So you're having fun? This right here is fun, right?" I know it's mean, but I figure they probably can't stand up and punch me, so what the heck? And besides, they usually don't remember it anyway.

Anyway, I just wanted to get that off my chest. I also don't have any tattoos or piercings, and I've never done drugs. But I did dye my hair a couple of times. I mention that just because I'm feeling like a square, and I'm worried that I won't be allowed to hang out with the cool kids anymore. I'll be fine.