My brand new social handicap

I’m currently avoiding alcohol for health reasons and was surprised at how much angst bubbled up when I thought about initiating the drought. It wasn’t any regular reliance on alcohol that made me twitch. I am not a daily drinker, or even a prolific social drinker. It was my concern about this being a social handicap!

You might gather that I’m no party animal. However most of my friends here in Canberra drink-as-a-hobby. I don’t hold it against them. After all, something has to provide relief from the grinding ache of living in the dry, barren dead heart of the Australia. (My other social handicap is compulsively complaining about Canberra – I had hoped downloading my irritation here might help with this depressing habit…but nope.)

But I do find that lifestyle drinkers tend to look scornfully upon non-drinkers. I was feared responses like: ‘You’ve changed man. You used to be fun.’ And I wasn’t too far off the mark. While responses weren’t quite so forward, I certainly didn’t receive any encouragement for biting the bullet, even in the name of my health:

Friend: ‘What do you mean you can’t just have one?’
Quirky: ‘You’re pointing at one full bucket of well-spiked punch there.’

Friend: ‘Stuff driving, you can crash here for the night?’
Quirky: ‘Crash through the front of your house?’

Friend: ‘Just give yourself a break for one night!’
Quirky: ‘I am giving myself a break! My poor overwrought body needs this break!’

Friend: ‘Health reasons? Pfff. You only live once.’
Quirky: ‘So how about making it last a while?’

I was miffed. These guys are my friends! Why don’t they want to see me doing something to make my life better? Even when they realised I was now wearing a sign reading ‘Your Personal Taxi’ on my forehead.
I still lasted the night. I happily talked rubbish and smashed all of them for Singstar stamina. What was their problem?

My guess is that drinking creates a circle of trust for its participants. When you drink, you’re making yourself vulnerable to embarrassment and want everyone else to be equally vulnerable. And you want them all to be equally vulnerable to memory loss. And if not, you want to make sure that you might remember them doing something as outrageous as you did. If not worse. The risk of being drunk (vulnerable) in the presence of just one sobre person seems to alarm people.

Having already accepted that not drinking requires an explanation, I’ve summarised the effectiveness of various explanatory approaches here:

1.Health reasons: 7/10 – excuse typically flies with women but not with men. Elicits encouragement to ‘live dangerously’.

2.I’m driving – and bonus, I can drive you too!: Surprisingly 2/10. For all the public awareness campaigns, this is no acceptable excuse. ‘It’s Canberra – you won’t get done!’; ‘Get a cab!’, ‘Crash at my place, or just get really f*d up and you can stay in the lock-up for free!’

3.I have plans for the morning: 1/10. Interpreted as ‘whatever you have to shop for in the morning is more important than your mates, so stuff you.’

Basically, there is no acceptable excuse. But here’s what I might try next time.

Quirky: ‘Friend. Don’t fear me. My heart is filled with empathy for your drunken state. I too was once like you. I won’t think you are stupid, or immature. I won’t take advantage of you, nor remind you of your over-disclosures or failed pick-up attempts. I will still like you when I look upon you with my naked eye, beer-goggles surrendered. And even after I find myself mopping your brow as you spew, instead of laughing raucously outside your toilet door to the funny choking noises you make, I will still love you tomorrow.’

Not drinking is plainly a social handicap here in the Capital. Check back soon for further posts about me being excluded from events and enduring a shrinking social circle!