Yesterday was a rough day. It’s very hard to explain without going into some long diatribe about feeling sorry for myself, but the end result was the same. I felt like crap at the end of the day. I’ve had these days on and off just like everyone does. But last night Tamara poked and prodded at me until I finally decided to open my mouth and let it all come out. I feel better today, but the fact of the matter if, I’m left wondering if I have been missing out.
It’s no secret to my friends and family that I don’t drink alcohol. I never have, and if I stick to my hard rule, I never will. A lot of people have asked me why and I usually just give the same reason about how it’s a personal choice. I came from a family where my grandfather and my grandmother were both alcoholics, and even my mom battled it when she was younger. Seeing what it can do to a family and to a person was enough for me to shy away from it when I was younger. As I grew up, I found a lot of my friends got drunk because they felt they needed something to blame when they did stupid and crazy things. I just did them anyway and didn’t care. Once I got through that part of my life, I figured since I had never needed alcohol up to that point, why should I start now? So here I am, turning 35 in a little over a week and I still have yet to ever have a drink.
So last night I started thinking about what people our age do. By the time you are in your mid-thirties, most people are married, have families, jobs, and have “grown-up” (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean) and the collection of friends they have has shrunk to only a few close ones. I’ve talked about it here before about how as we get older it’s harder to keep in touch with people. Things like Facebook, Twitter, email, IM, and the such help, but it really isn’t the same thing as sitting down and hanging out with some friends.
That having been said, I wondered, what if I had been the casual drinker? Most folks I know would not call me up and say “Hey Matt, you wanna go for a beer?” because I don’t drink. That line is really the pretext for just wanting to go hang out somewhere with a friend. You go out with a few friends, have a beer, chat, bitch about life/work/whatever and then go home. It’s really just an excuse to get the guys together.
I however have never been part of that equation. Tamara said something last night that kind of struck a chord with me. I have friends of mine who have “gone out for a beer” but I have never been called to join them. I’m sure it is not a slight to me in any fashion, but the fact of the matter is, I don’t drink. I suspect that I don’t get those invites because folks might think I wouldn’t want to bother “going for a beer” since I don’t drink. I have been invited to a kegger once even though I don’t drink and that sticks out in my mind because it was a real nice thing to do. Regardless, my friends who do partake in the occasional after work beverage are not slighting me, they’re just enjoying something that I don’t do.
So that got me to thinking a bit more. What if I had just said fuck it ages ago and had the occasional social drink? Would that have affected how my life is now? I mean, not getting drunk all the time, and becoming an alcoholic, but just sitting down and having a drink or two with a few friends for the sake of shooting the shit. Would that have made any difference?
It’s got me to thinking a little bit about that one particular choice I have made. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not interested in hangovers, puking because I drank too much, or waking up and not remembering what I did the night before. None of that is appealing to me. However, the social aspect and the comradery that goes along with sitting back, having a few drinks, and just enjoying yourself is something that is very appealing to me.
It leaves me in a bit of a quandary. I have no desire to really give up on something that I have been so hard pressed on for my whole life. I also don’t think that by taking up the occasional drink here and there I’m going to solve a lot of my social ineptitude. That’s a personal thing that I have yet to figure out. I do however “wonder” about how things might be different with myself if I was a casual drinker. Would it help break me out of that shell?
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