PSA

[arisha]

So for those of you not in the know, I don't drink alcohol. I made this choice before I was of drinking age and I have kept with it because it is the choice that makes sense to me. I cannot articulate my reasoning any clearer than that, but that's fine; this is not a choice I feel the need to justify. I have no problem with the thought of other people drinking, but I have no interest in being one of them.

Having said that. Obviously I do have friends and co-workers and relatives and acquaintances who drink. This does not bother me, but it seems very much to bother them. I can go months at a time without this being brought up, but then it begins again: "Sarah, we're gonna take you out drinking. I really want to see you drunk, it'd be so funny! I'll take you to my favourite clubs, you can crash at my place, it'll be so much fun!!" A fine proposition, but one that I am sick to death of hearing. Look: I don't drink. You know I don't drink. You know that I have been of legal drinking age for four years and I have never had a drink, or wanted to have a drink. You know I don't see any appeal in getting drunk. I have told you that alcohol just makes my parents sleepy, and is likely to affect me the same boring way. I am so not interested in this plan at all and yet people keep suggesting this to me. My friends are mostly over this stage, but every time I have a new group of co-workers it's the same thing all over again. And how sure of themselves they must be, to think that they will be the ones to change my mind, that they will be the ones I let take me to the clubs. Look, dudes - my best friends have not been able to get me drunk. What makes you think you'll be able to.

I think I just realized that I've been living under the impression that peer pressure ceases to exist once you hit twenty.

Post inspired by an annoyance in an otherwise fantastic last night. A minor annoyance, but an annoyance nonetheless. :|

Comments

[athena-crikey.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I was going to make a similar post the other day.

I just got back from a 2 day field trip to Toronto. Before I left I told my parents I was going.

Dad: Don't just sit in the hotel all night, go out and do something!
Me: Mm hmm...
Dad: You should go out for dinner or something.
Me: We'll see.
Dad: 'We'll see,' I know what that means.
Me: Well, most people are probably just going to go out drinking and clubbing.
Dad: So go with them; it's time you grew up.

And I just... arg. Like, I have to enjoy drinking and clubbing to be an adult? Really? I have been clubbing, I have had drinks, and frankly I don't care for either - especially with people I don't really know (or with those I do, but at least I can stand it because I know they're enjoying themselves and I'll have an important role in getting them home). But if I don't conform to the popular idea of what's popular for adults, it means I'm not one? Luckily, a lot of people grow out of it by their mid-late twenties so you stop sticking out as much, I've found.

Frankly, although it's horrible, if my coworkers or something started to bug me about it like that - I'm sure, as Wykydtron says, they just genuinly don't get how irritating it is to have your choices disrespected as being foolish/naive/childish/whatever, but unless you get really pissed off with them they probably won't drop it - I'd make up a reason. Probably family history of alcoholism for me - since there is one, although not in my blood family - that would make them drop it pretty damn fast. With people who you don't know that well and maybe aren't likely to, it's that or be perpetually annoyed until you have a fight about it.