1) I don’t have any new and useful phrases to contribute, but I will provide my data point of never really having any problems saying “I don’t drink”. I guess it depends on the atmosphere though. My interpretation of peoples’ responses to that is one of the following:
I don’t really know this guy… I don’t want to challenge him… Maybe he has a drinking problem?… Maybe someone he knows died in an accident with a drunk driver?… I don’t want to offend him.
Whatever. I don’t care.
Eh, he’s probably lame and not fun. Forget him.
But it’d be so much more fun if you drank with us. It feels good when everyone in the group is doing it together.
[Someone who knows me] Adam, I want to see how you respond to alcohol.
Responses 3 and 4 seem more rare.
3) My thoughts (which aren’t particularly new or insightful):
The social lubricating aspect of it is big. Disinhibition → fun. And the environments around alcohol further this as well (dark, noisy, crowded...). I don’t get the sense that people consciously reason this way, but I think that they’ve subconsciously associated it with fun.
Convention is very powerful. (I realized that you might be asking where the convention comes from, but I still thought this was worth mentioning)
There isn’t really that much for adults to do at night. Well, I mean there is, but other people don’t seem to think so. It seems to be (somewhat) frowned upon to stay at home and watch tv, a movie, play games. In other words, people seem to think that you need to go out. Which at night time, pretty much means eating, drinking, or maybe some sort of performance.
1) I don’t have any new and useful phrases to contribute, but I will provide my data point of never really having any problems saying “I don’t drink”. I guess it depends on the atmosphere though. My interpretation of peoples’ responses to that is one of the following:
I don’t really know this guy… I don’t want to challenge him… Maybe he has a drinking problem?… Maybe someone he knows died in an accident with a drunk driver?… I don’t want to offend him.
Whatever. I don’t care.
Eh, he’s probably lame and not fun. Forget him.
But it’d be so much more fun if you drank with us. It feels good when everyone in the group is doing it together.
[Someone who knows me] Adam, I want to see how you respond to alcohol.
Responses 3 and 4 seem more rare.
3) My thoughts (which aren’t particularly new or insightful):
The social lubricating aspect of it is big. Disinhibition → fun. And the environments around alcohol further this as well (dark, noisy, crowded...). I don’t get the sense that people consciously reason this way, but I think that they’ve subconsciously associated it with fun.
Convention is very powerful. (I realized that you might be asking where the convention comes from, but I still thought this was worth mentioning)
There isn’t really that much for adults to do at night. Well, I mean there is, but other people don’t seem to think so. It seems to be (somewhat) frowned upon to stay at home and watch tv, a movie, play games. In other words, people seem to think that you need to go out. Which at night time, pretty much means eating, drinking, or maybe some sort of performance.
A relevant read—http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/secretly-hate-bars.html