Not drinking alcohol is one the oldest habits I have. It’s certainly the one I was tested the most. I have some memories in my teens where this decision came about. I see influences from teachers that I appreciated a lot at school and circumstances I experienced myself.
At some point, I decided: I won’t go this route. This will simply avoid a whole class of issues and I think it’s worth it. Today, I want to talk about its tradeoffs, in particular, how men and women tend to react.
Men
In Brazil, I’d say it is more weird than as if you’re man and you don’t care about soccer. I really didn’t know how to navigate conversations where this theme came out. My tendency was to avoid the topic and switch to a different one.
I have no idea how a cold beer feels like in a hot day, although I’ve heard it so many times. I’ve lost a number of social interactions because they took place in a bar. I was felt I didn’t belong there.
I think part of me was afraid of just admiting the decision I took. I mean, what’s the problem? In the begining, I felt bad as if I was doing something wrong. With time, I guess I learned to accept the way I am, started being more upfront and confident. My past self would not believe the amount of non-alcoholic drink a bar has. Slowly but surely, I started attending social events with no guilt.
In my mind, there are 2 group of men:
- ~70% hear your preference and move on. After all, what else to do? It is like choosing your dish in a menu, isn’t it?
- ~30% have a hard time letting it go. They will try to convince you that, once you try option A, B or C, then you can really tell, otherwise, you simply haven’t tried enough.
This minority can be loud and tiresome at times. There are those who offer/insist in every oportunity they have. It is almost as if there’s a glimmer of hope that you join their camp. I can recall people that know me for 10+ years and still do that. You can feel a level of disappointment in their voice and body language when you refuse it.
Reading between the lines, alcohol is such an integral part of their existence as human beings that, finding someone where it is not the case makes us so different apart that we’ll never connect in a more meaningful way. I’ve never heard it in actual words, but I can see how my posture confronts their beliefs/habits in such a deep way that there’s not too much I can do to make up for it.
Women
In the other hand, for women, this is not a thing. It is as if I had chosen apples over bananas. Whatever.
What strickes me the most are the women who are in a relationship with the 30% loud minority of men that can’t accept it. This time, it is not reading between lines, but actual words I’ve heard:
- “Thank God”
- “Congratulations”
- “God bless you”
The sample size is reasonable enough for me to mention it here. It’s been a dozen of times. You also feel in their voice, sometimes with tear in their eyes. This correlation can’t be ignored. One can only imagine what those women have experienced to have such reaction. To some extent, this creates an immediate bond between us, as if we were in the same team.
In the end of the day, this is just a decision like any other. Obviously, it does not make me any better than others. I don’t want to romanticize it. My callout is to highlight that, for a certain of group of people, it is a very big deal (positively and negatively).