Rambling: Stuck at the Kid’s Table - On Alcohol and Adulthood
One of the biggest topics I’ve found people to be at-odds with me with is alcohol. I think I’ve had far more people in interpersonal relationships give me shit over not drinking than anything else.
Like, I don’t drink alcohol at all. It’s a total 100% no-go for me. I don’t mind it if my girlfriend drinks, though from what I’ve gathered she has yet to actually find a drink that tastes good to her, so I haven’t had to experience how she is drunk. A lot of these feelings definitely revolve around my own anxieties towards drinking, though it’s important to point out my hypocrisy when you factor in that I’m totally fine with having some Fun Weed Adventures on an occasional Saturday. But, Idunno man. A lot of things are hypocritical and nonsensical, and my thoughts on alcohol are predominantly on what I imbibe, nobody else. I don’t consider my stance some high-and-mighty “I’m better than you lowly drunks” thing, because it’s not - I don’t feel comfortable at the thought of being drunk, so I don’t drink. I’m comfortable getting high in the comfort and privacy of my own home, so I do that. Simple as. I don’t care if other people get drunk. But it fucking sucks that people expect you to justify not drinking, especially as someone that does do weed as if someone that does drugs from time to tome ought to be a connoisseur of all things mind-altering.
There’s this work event coming up, and one of my coworkers had asked if I wanted to go. I said that I didn’t have any plans on going, and they asked why. The event in question was getting dressed up to go to a venue for an award ceremony dinner, then going bar crawling. Why would I want to do that? I’d rather just stay home. Like, I like maintaining an amicable acquaintance with my coworkers, but as I’ve expressed in a previous post - the second I walk out my workplace’s office, I don’t know you people. I’m especially not interested in learning how you people are drunk. I obviously did not say this to my coworker, because that’s really asshole-y, but I just said that I don’t like alcohol so I’d pass. They gave me the whole song and dance with “oh, it’d be fun! plus the company pays for it!”, but I’d rather that money be spent on my paycheck, thanks I guess?
I do have a degree of bias: when I was a kid, my father drank Millers every night like it was his religion. The rest of our family on his side were some flavor of perpetual drunk, whether that’s beers with the boys and being mad at Ohio State for getting its ass beat by Michigan again or the wine aunts getting together to bitch about their families. It’s a total me thing, but I’ve seen myself become addicted to (and for some, still dealing with) various other addictive things: caffeine and gacha games with big titty babes to name a few. I feel like if I tried drinking, I’d fall into that same, very expensive rabbit hole, y’know? It’s scary. I don’t want to end up like my father. Especially what with how he was when he was drunk.
With being under the influence, I’ve never gotten drunk but I have gotten high a few times. It’s even on my website, I like to take a half or full 10MG gummy sometime during the weekend to relax and hang out. I haven’t quite found a “perfect” or even really “good” gummy for me, the only thing I’ve learned is that sativas really only make me more anxious, which is something I don’t need more of. I like Wyld’s strawberry hybrid gummies, though they taste a little too weed-y for me.
But regardless - when I’m high, it’s difficult for me to measure just how functional I actually am. I’ll think I’m okay, but I’ll get up and my everything just becomes jelly and my clumsiness gets ramped up to 11. There’s this fear in me that I don’t know how I’m going to be drunk - it’s a bit of a Pandora’s box to me that I’m afraid of opening. And like, I’ve seen sad drunks (my mom) and outright violent drunks (my father) out of my own family, and plain asshole drunks out of numerous people. Why would I want to chance becoming like that, because I “might” have fun? Not to mention the places you get drunk at are typically public areas like bars - I don’t feel comfortable at the mere prospect of being high outside of my bedroom, let alone in public, and who knows how I’d be drunk? Especially in the age of social media and people filming strangers being "weird" on TikTok to make fun of them? No thanks.
That’s not to say I’ve never tried it - I’ve tasted a few different alcohols before - bourbon, beer, wines, one of those funny fruity drinks, vodka at some point - and they’re just not for me. All I taste is nail polish remover. Maybe it’s the basic chicken nugget ass autism girl dinner palette of mine, but alcohol is plain disgusting to me. No amount of fruity flavorings and sugary additives can change that.
All this to say, though, is when discussing going drinking or what have you and you end up admitting that you don’t drink, it’s like half a dozen pop-ups saying “Joe Schmoe hated that” appears. It’s as if your adult card is immediately revoked on the mere mention that you don’t drink - unless, of course, you had a “good excuse”, like recovering from alcoholism, or your religion prevents you from drinking alcohol, or that you’re pregnant, or that you have a specific cocktail of medications that, when combined with alcohol, will cause you to spontaneously combust. And for some people, even those aren’t good enough excuses, that it’s just one drink, why are you such a buzzkill? Maybe you wouldn’t be so uptight if you let loose once in your life.
And it’s like, at the end of the day, the people that give you shit over that of all things, their opinions do not matter. Not drinking doesn’t make me, or anyone else, any less of an adult. But it’s frustrating, trying to meet people as an adult and learning about them and their interests and suddenly being labeled as Literal Manchild because you don’t drink. I’ve always had issues with how I perceive myself, and how others perceive me, as an adult. Maybe it’s something that is residual from the lockdowns, or just another Funny Autism Thing, but I feel as though most people talk down at me, rather than talk to me. As if I’m “adult lite”, because I act weird, or I like cutesy things, or I like playing video games, or I’m always packing very simple and “lame” kids field trip looking ass lunches for work instead of dropping $15 a day on eating out somewhere, or I don’t drink.
There’s something to be said about the noticeable infantilization of younger generations including mine, but at the same time - I think a lot of the things people consider “adultlike” are rather arbitrary and quite frankly boring? Like, again, the drinking thing, but also the whole grindset workaholic money money money worship thing that I just cannot subscribe to, the interests and hobbies that are deemed “appropriate” for adults (ie “put down the video games and get a real hobby”), the blatantly arbitrary milestones and expectations people have - you’re supposed to have a degree, you’re supposed to have a well-paying job, you’re supposed to have a good car, you’re supposed to own a house, you’re supposed to get married (to a spouse of equal value, because if they’re rich you’re a leech and if they’re poor you’re being used, and god forbid you get with someone that is disabled or physically cannot work), you’re supposed to start a family. And if you dare stray from that, you’re a capital F failure. Like, dafuq?
Circling back to the whole drinking thing: the silver lining with living in Phoenix is that they do have a selection of third places to hang out and meet people where drinking to a stupor is not an expectation - places like the open-air malls with ample seating along the median, cafes that aren’t just Starbucks or Dunkin, and of course the parks and libraries scattered across the Valley. The issue with these, however, is they aren’t the most accessible. Phoenix is a meme for being a city built for cars, but outside of a few neighborhoods, you literally have to drive everywhere to get to said third places, or gamble on the reliability of public transport or rideshare services.
At the same time though, it’s an improvement to where I lived in Ohio, where your choices of third places are a) a bar or b) a church - slim pickings for a queer woman that doesn’t drink and wants to avoid religion where possible. And when you have a town with significantly more bars than functional transport services that operate after 6PM (that being: none), you get to meet many closeted or out and proud booze ‘n’ cruisers, as well as many folks with loved ones who’ve been killed by drunk drivers.
Idunno. All this to say that I wish it was easier to find friends as an adult, and moreso finding queer friendly places that aren’t just places to drink. Bars have their place and serve an important purpose, but it’s not the place for me, y’know? Maybe I oughta join a local book club or some shit.