Disclaimer: I ask this as a a brown person born in the UK with immigrant parents, who has never drank alcohol in my life so far.
It's always made me think. When you see people socialising in media shows or films. People talk about nights out, or holidays. How enjoyable a wedding might be depending on the quality of it's drink and open bar policy or lack thereof. Dating and stuff like Tinder, where you meet for drinks. Nightclubs, stag do's and hen nights etc.
As someone who doesn't drink, in some ways I do feel like I'm on the outside looking in. Watching a world I've never taken part in.
I remember back in school. Yes there were some fellow asians, but predominantly I hung around with white classmates. I didn't really think much of it as a kid. My friends were my friends, regardless of skin colour. Relatively I had more white friends, and my two best friends were white. This was the case in first and middle school, as well as early high school.
Then we got to around 14-15, and people started drinking alcohol. All of a sudden there was a shift in my friendship dynamics. I slowly started to hang around more with asians, and less with white friends. Where before I'd flirted back and forth with my white female classmates, that stopped too. My closer friends felt it as well, this sudden strain in our relationship. How all of a sudden I wouldn't join them in certain nights out. While we didn't acknowledge it at the time, we knew there was something wrong, but wasn't sure what, and felt confused.
It was like all the integration you generally want to have in order to further society worked as kids. But then people grew up to drinking age, and then seperated into their own seperate communities and all those years of progress became undone
It's not just a race or cultural thing either. This also applies to 'regular' white people who don't drink either. One of those aforementioned friends I reconnected with a few years ago. She stopped drinking one day after an uncle of hers was killed by a drunk driver. She's pretty big into health and fitness too.
She says she sometimes feels left out now that she doesn't drink. Like her father and grandparents at dinners might say "Just have one glass of wine, what's the harm?", and she can see they look visibly annoyed when she refuses. How overtime she's grown distant to a lot of her former friends since she stopped going to clubs and bars with them. And she only did that because she felt uncomfortable with being egged on to drink. How she feel people don't like her anymore because they feel she comes across as too elitist. As if they think she's judging them by not drinking herself. She says it's just easier to not socialise with them
Now I'm a shy guy. Apparently I'm oblivious too according to the aforementioned female friend. I'm not the best at recognising when someone is coming onto me, but I do at times. There was a thread about ghosting recently, and you see all over the Internet things like 'how best to let someone down'. You know what works best for me? Responding to "do you want to get a drink sometime?", with variations of "I'm sorry I don't drink."
Occasionally they or I will mention coffee, or a meal somewhere. Some have even tried to 'convert' me over. But 90% of the time as soon as I mention I don't drink, they immediately lose interest. As if my worth as a person, is dependent on ability to consume alcohol
Now as I said with my disclaimer, I'm a UK child born to foreigners, and I have never drank alcohol at all. I fully admit, I'm biased in this debate. But I find it sad that I can get along with so many people so well online on forums like this, over text, at work and so on. How I can have many close childhood friends. But as soon as socialising in person comes into play, suddenly it can't happen unless alcohol is in present
It's always made me think. When you see people socialising in media shows or films. People talk about nights out, or holidays. How enjoyable a wedding might be depending on the quality of it's drink and open bar policy or lack thereof. Dating and stuff like Tinder, where you meet for drinks. Nightclubs, stag do's and hen nights etc.
As someone who doesn't drink, in some ways I do feel like I'm on the outside looking in. Watching a world I've never taken part in.
I remember back in school. Yes there were some fellow asians, but predominantly I hung around with white classmates. I didn't really think much of it as a kid. My friends were my friends, regardless of skin colour. Relatively I had more white friends, and my two best friends were white. This was the case in first and middle school, as well as early high school.
Then we got to around 14-15, and people started drinking alcohol. All of a sudden there was a shift in my friendship dynamics. I slowly started to hang around more with asians, and less with white friends. Where before I'd flirted back and forth with my white female classmates, that stopped too. My closer friends felt it as well, this sudden strain in our relationship. How all of a sudden I wouldn't join them in certain nights out. While we didn't acknowledge it at the time, we knew there was something wrong, but wasn't sure what, and felt confused.
It was like all the integration you generally want to have in order to further society worked as kids. But then people grew up to drinking age, and then seperated into their own seperate communities and all those years of progress became undone
It's not just a race or cultural thing either. This also applies to 'regular' white people who don't drink either. One of those aforementioned friends I reconnected with a few years ago. She stopped drinking one day after an uncle of hers was killed by a drunk driver. She's pretty big into health and fitness too.
She says she sometimes feels left out now that she doesn't drink. Like her father and grandparents at dinners might say "Just have one glass of wine, what's the harm?", and she can see they look visibly annoyed when she refuses. How overtime she's grown distant to a lot of her former friends since she stopped going to clubs and bars with them. And she only did that because she felt uncomfortable with being egged on to drink. How she feel people don't like her anymore because they feel she comes across as too elitist. As if they think she's judging them by not drinking herself. She says it's just easier to not socialise with them
Now I'm a shy guy. Apparently I'm oblivious too according to the aforementioned female friend. I'm not the best at recognising when someone is coming onto me, but I do at times. There was a thread about ghosting recently, and you see all over the Internet things like 'how best to let someone down'. You know what works best for me? Responding to "do you want to get a drink sometime?", with variations of "I'm sorry I don't drink."
Occasionally they or I will mention coffee, or a meal somewhere. Some have even tried to 'convert' me over. But 90% of the time as soon as I mention I don't drink, they immediately lose interest. As if my worth as a person, is dependent on ability to consume alcohol
Now as I said with my disclaimer, I'm a UK child born to foreigners, and I have never drank alcohol at all. I fully admit, I'm biased in this debate. But I find it sad that I can get along with so many people so well online on forums like this, over text, at work and so on. How I can have many close childhood friends. But as soon as socialising in person comes into play, suddenly it can't happen unless alcohol is in present
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