Not holding my drink
Telling someone that I am a teetotaler often feels like I am explaining an eccentric dressing sense — why do I always wear fuchsia pink striped pants, an orange top, and throw in a balaclava, too? Something like that.
I think it first happened in college. When I told my group of friends I don't drink, one raised her eyebrows and nodded — sympathetically. Another coolly put his arm around me. If I could hear the voices in people's heads, I am sure I would have overheard, "We'll see, Kiddo. I'm sure we can take care of that."
They couldn't. Neither could the group after them.
Unfortunately for them, and the numerous colleagues and friends who followed, I earnestly began explaining why I am a teetotaler. The logic is rather elegant. Roses are red, violets are blue and I hate the way most drinks taste. My boss is a patient man, but I don't think even he can help shaking his head when I announce, in the middle of his third drink, that alcohol tastes like shit.
The next, almost automatic point most people make is that it is OK (a euphemism for 'it's permissible, even normal') to not like alcohol immediately. The key, a wise friend once told me, is to keep at it, never lose sight of, er, something. Something important… he trailed off. "The point is to keep drinking till you like it," he finished theatrically.
"But why would I ever go back to something that's repulsive?" I asked, twirling the little paper umbrella they often stick into mocktails. My friend shook his head and scowled at the umbrella as if it was making me say those things.
The day after, he came over to my place to tell me that he understood "why I am this way". I folded my hands as he sunk into the couch and opened a pocket notebook where he had scribbled something that he obviously meant to read out loud. It reminded me of a scene in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Volume II, where an assassin casually reads out what the venom of a black mamba can do, while her victim writhes on the floor. Well, no resemblances here, at least.
"A teetotaler may cite religious or social convictions as the basis for her abstinence, or else she may have witnessed the effects of alcohol on relatives at an early age. The decision to become a teetotaler is based on one's own moral code. While some may view a teetotaler as someone afraid to take risks or join the popular crowd, others may see a teetotaler as someone capable of taking a strong position on an issue and not compromising due to peer pressure," he read out monotonously. "So, do you have any of these issues?" he looked up and asked. I made obnoxious slurping noises with the straw in my glass of lemonade after the drink had run out.
I've tried generous amounts of vodka, tequila, rum, whiskey, beer — everything that makes so many people so happy (high). And I can hold my drink till long after people spewed secrets and more. The worst that happened when I was tipsy on two occasions was snatching mobile phones from co-tipsy friends to stop them from talking to people (because I was talking) and locking myself in the bedroom of my friend's parents and telling her mother that I would not come out unless "a rescue mission is organised by the watchmen" — dogs, ladders and all.
A friend once told me uninhibited conversation is possible only after a generous number of shots swirl in your bloodstream. I get it, but telling it like it is in sobriety is just as fun. The only thing that's changed since I did that even as a kid, is that after a blunt remark to a relative, I am no longer taken in to a nearby room and warned to tone it down. Now, I can call for fuzzy mocktails — with umbrellas — sit back and watch the fun.
Telling someone that I am a teetotaler often feels like I am explaining an eccentric dressing sense — why do I always wear fuchsia pink striped pants, an orange top, and throw in a balaclava, too? Something like that.I think it first happened in college. When I told my group of friends I don't drink, one raised her eyebrows and nodded — sympathetically. Another coolly put his arm around me. If I could hear the voices in people's heads, I am sure I would have overheard, "We'll see, Kiddo. I'm sure we can take care of that."
They couldn't. Neither could the group after them.
Unfortunately for them, and the numerous colleagues and friends who followed, I earnestly began explaining why I am a teetotaler. The logic is rather elegant. Roses are red, violets are blue and I hate the way most drinks taste. My boss is a patient man, but I don't think even he can help shaking his head when I announce, in the middle of his third drink, that alcohol tastes like shit.
The next, almost automatic point most people make is that it is OK (a euphemism for 'it's permissible, even normal') to not like alcohol immediately. The key, a wise friend once told me, is to keep at it, never lose sight of, er, something. Something important… he trailed off. "The point is to keep drinking till you like it," he finished theatrically.
"But why would I ever go back to something that's repulsive?" I asked, twirling the little paper umbrella they often stick into mocktails. My friend shook his head and scowled at the umbrella as if it was making me say those things.
The day after, he came over to my place to tell me that he understood "why I am this way". I folded my hands as he sunk into the couch and opened a pocket notebook where he had scribbled something that he obviously meant to read out loud. It reminded me of a scene in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Volume II, where an assassin casually reads out what the venom of a black mamba can do, while her victim writhes on the floor. Well, no resemblances here, at least.
"A teetotaler may cite religious or social convictions as the basis for her abstinence, or else she may have witnessed the effects of alcohol on relatives at an early age. The decision to become a teetotaler is based on one's own moral code. While some may view a teetotaler as someone afraid to take risks or join the popular crowd, others may see a teetotaler as someone capable of taking a strong position on an issue and not compromising due to peer pressure," he read out monotonously. "So, do you have any of these issues?" he looked up and asked. I made obnoxious slurping noises with the straw in my glass of lemonade after the drink had run out.
I've tried generous amounts of vodka, tequila, rum, whiskey, beer — everything that makes so many people so happy (high). And I can hold my drink till long after people spewed secrets and more. The worst that happened when I was tipsy on two occasions was snatching mobile phones from co-tipsy friends to stop them from talking to people (because I was talking) and locking myself in the bedroom of my friend's parents and telling her mother that I would not come out unless "a rescue mission is organised by the watchmen" — dogs, ladders and all.
A friend once told me uninhibited conversation is possible only after a generous number of shots swirl in your bloodstream. I get it, but telling it like it is in sobriety is just as fun. The only thing that's changed since I did that even as a kid, is that after a blunt remark to a relative, I am no longer taken in to a nearby room and warned to tone it down. Now, I can call for fuzzy mocktails — with umbrellas — sit back and watch the fun.
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