I get no pleasure from alcohol and feel like an alien in society as a result

aline wrote:

To me all this says is, "my life is so incredibly boring, and I am such an incredibly boring person that I literally cannot think of anything better to do with my time than sit around and be stupid." It's a disgrace.

It sounds like you're the one who's incredibly boring. Do you like doing anything other than complaining about other people? Doesn't sound like it. There's plenty of things to do that don't involve getting drunk; the fact that you can't be bothered to do any just speaks poorly of yourself.

let your guard down a bit - agree with most of your points, but booze isnt bad for us uptight types. helps you open up a, which may become part of your personality.

certainly no excuse to act stupid, don't know too many stupid drunks - maybe just a bit silly.

Your problem isn't drinking. It's that you don't know how to socialize. I drink pretty frequently, as do many of my friends, but we have friends who don't drink yet still enjoy coming over for dinner and shooting the shit for 6 hours around the table, even though the rest of us are going through quite a few bottles of wine.

Also, for most people who are used to drinking, acting stupid isn't all that common. Most experienced drinkers just get a bit more talkative and animated.

Honestly, as a "highly motivated introvert," it sounds like you might benefit from alcohol. Your inhibitions make it tough to connect with people. When more extroverted people drink, their inhibitions go down even more, allowing them to connect with each other even more, and leaving you even more isolated.

Buddy, you're the one feeling isolated and unhappy, so it's pretty ridiculous of you to criticize "everyone else" for having boring, empty lives, when it seems like they're actually enjoying fulfilling human connections.

As for their behavior being "a disgrace," it seems like you've let us in on your real objective today: not to solve your problem, but to bash everyone else who doesn't see the world your way.

Here's my take, I'm 49, 26 years sober, so for me, drinking even socially, is not an option. I work in Sales for a tech company, and everybody drinks. In fact at my office, they wheel around a beverage cart on Friday afternoons. For the younger sales guys, it's an inherent part of the job.

People for the most part are cool with my not drinking when I explain the sobriety thing. I've found not drinking to be a handicap to both my job and relationship building, but not to the point I can't succeed.

Like previous posters have said, focus on yourself, the stuff you want to achieve, and if you're successful, it won't matter as much. I wouldn't get hung up about everyone else drinking, and how society applauds it.

Some of the best friends I have are recovering alcoholics.

I say this because at your age I struggled with being different. Today I appreciate the journey and privately embrace it. Accept that you choose to live life in a way that is different, and look for ways to compensate socially if that's important to you.

Lastly, you'll save yourself a ton of money not drinking. Put that into your 401K. Your 49 year old self will thank you profusely.

aline wrote:

I started grad school and literally everyone in my lab as well as the PI gets drunk about once a week and sees drinking as a great activity they love to do. Drinking is a freakin EVENT for these people.

Once a week people are getting drunk and you see a problem with that?

An 'Event'? Yeah, it's called... THE WEEKEND.

I am so glad I don't know you. You sound BOOOOORING.

MacDaddy wrote:

aline wrote:

I started grad school and literally everyone in my lab as well as the PI gets drunk about once a week and sees drinking as a great activity they love to do. Drinking is a freakin EVENT for these people.

Once a week people are getting drunk and you see a problem with that?

An 'Event'? Yeah, it's called... THE WEEKEND.

I am so glad I don't know you. You sound BOOOOORING.

Exactly. You're socially isolated because the people around you spend, what, 4 hours per week engaging in an activity that you don't enjoy?

I know how to socialize just fine and have plenty of friends. The trouble is drinking is a really big part of their lives, so it limits the amount of stuff we can do together. I don't take pleasure in shooting the shit for six hours regardless of the situation. Most people who just want to sit around and shoot the shit for 6 hours on a regular basis have nothing going on in their lives, otherwise they wouldn't have time to sit around for six hours.

You apparently don't understand what introverted even means. It doesn't mean anti-social or socially inept. It means the person needs time alone to recharge. Introverts can be very outgoing and social; they just then need time alone to gain energy back to do it again.

Perhaps I should have mentioned I don't like idiots. Then it would have been clear before you started spouting stupidity that you would never understand what it's like for someone different than yourself. You don't even understand the fvcking terminology used in the conversation. How are we supposed to communicate? This is the kind of shit I run into with people who drink a lot. I can't even have what I consider to be a normal conversation because people like you are too dense and ignorant to understand what's being said if it goes outside the topics of sex and sports.

It just sounds like you are hanging out with really fratty bros or straight up alcoholics. No one really wants to spend a time with both. There are plenty of people who drink who don't just talk about sports. Find it impossible that literally everyone you knows drinks to the point where they are incoherent.

Have a couple drinks at first, leave when people get "stupid". Doesn't seem like rocket science.

This is my point. For most people, "socializing" means "talking." And while most dinner parties don't go for 6 hours, the best ones do, because friends are having such a good time TALKING with each other.

As for people having enough time to do it, you're talking out of both sides of your mouth. First you say that the problem is that you can't hang out with your friends because they just want to drink. Then you say that people who have time to drink have nothing going on in their lives. If you've got so much going on in your life that you don't have time to socialize with your friends while they're drinking, then you wouldn't care whether they're drinking or not, because you'd be busy doing all the other exciting stuff that's going on in your exciting life.

I understand what it means to be introverted. I'm fairly introverted myself. Though, for what it's worth, "needing time alone to recharge" is far from a universally accepted definition of introversion in the psychology community. Indeed, the entire concept of what it means to be introverted is heavily unsettled at the moment.

I realize I'm being a bit harsh, but I think it's to be expected when you call a huge percentage of your audience disgraceful. It's also a bit ironic that you say I "would never understand what it's like for someone different" than myself, when you're the one who is complaining about not being able to understand what most of the world sees in drinking.

Finally, I feel like a bit of a dick for saying this, but I suppose your behavior warrants it: I would be utterly shocked if you are as intelligent, educated, or well read as I am.

credit capital markets wrote:

It just sounds like you are hanging out with really fratty bros or straight up alcoholics. No one really wants to spend a time with both. There are plenty of people who drink who don't just talk about sports.

Fair point.

In my experience many people who didn't drink much in their early 20s--because they associated it with frat culture in college--nevertheless learn to really enjoy it later on.

Also, for what it's worth, drinking is positively correlated with intelligence:

aline wrote:

You apparently don't understand what introverted even means. It doesn't mean anti-social or socially inept. It means the person needs time alone to recharge. Introverts can be very outgoing and social; they just then need time alone to gain energy back to do it again.

If you need time alone to recharge, isn't it a good thing that people you know spend some time doing things that you aren't interested in? If your coworkers go out for drinks once per week, doesn't that just give you an opportunity to have your alone time?

Again, why not just hang out with different people if you want to do things other than drink? At any given moment, there are people playing sports, going for runs, hiking, bungee jumping, learning a new language, coaching a youth sport, doing art projects, making music, volunteering, and doing pretty much any other non-drinking activity that you could dream up. Why not, like, hang out with those people instead of the people who only like to drink?

Drinking takes all the normal social conventions that rigidly define human interactions and throws them out the window. No more struggling to phrase things in the most politically correct way, no more desperately trying to think of things to talk about to keep a conversation going, no more feeling awkward or inhibited or anything like that. To me, being drunk is like being totally free. I think a big drunken party is the greatest thing ever, just a group of people talking, laughing, dancing, connecting, feeling one with each other in a way that's near impossible in sober settings.

Can we switch living locations? In my area I can't find women between the ages of 22 and 39 in bars practically at all unless they're already there with their boyfriends, and even then that's rare. The rest don't want to go out, only in part because they're too busy being single moms. Where is the terrific place you speak of where women only want to drink?

As much as I'm serious about what I said above, I know the frustration you speak of. When I entered college, I was disgusted with people who wanted to drink all the time, and called them "weak for wanting to pickle their livers in order to have fun." Unfortunately, after a few years I realized that _I_ was the only person not having fun at parties, and in a moment of if-you-can't-beat-them-then-join-them, I tried some jägermeister, rum and Coke, 151, and Bailey's, and had a ridiculously good time and haven't looked back since. Now that many years have passed and I have to be my own designated driver, I drink lightly and for taste, and can't remember the last time I was drunk (no pun intended). For me now, drinking takes an unhappy person and reverts him to the state of happiness he had when he was younger. Through reflection, I realize that when I'm inebriated I tend to see the good in things, in myself, and in other people, and be much more thankful for what I have, and that positive attitude and outlook allows me to have more fun personally, and be more fun around others. Is my current state completely hypocritical compared to my thoughts on weakness years ago? Yes, but I take joy where I can get it.

On a side note, my brother is like you, in that he finds it difficult to befriend people if not drinking. I think the greatest problem for him is that there really aren't too many venues other than bars that are socially accepted to be places where people go to mingle under no pretense (e.g. pretense of it being a work-function, etc.). So I would suggest simply posting a Craigslist ad saying you're looking for friends and activity buddies who don't drink.

aline wrote:

Perhaps I should have mentioned I don't like idiots. Then it would have been clear before you started spouting stupidity that you would never understand what it's like for someone different than yourself. You don't even understand the fvcking terminology used in the conversation. How are we supposed to communicate? This is the kind of shit I run into with people who drink a lot. I can't even have what I consider to be a normal conversation because people like you are too dense and ignorant to understand what's being said if it goes outside the topics of sex and sports.

From what I have read so far alcohol is not the issue. If it makes you feel better just stick with blaming booze and all the idiots out there.

I experience great pleasure from the flavor of fine wine and champagne.

It's one of life's greatest pleasures uncorking a fine wine and sampling it's bounty.

You seem to be completely ignorant as to what a life outside of frequent drinking even looks like, and you appear to be incapable of understanding that there are activities besides drinking that might be more enjoyable if done with others. Just because I enjoy mountaineering, world travel, photography, reading non-fiction, and attending concerts and visiting museums doesn't mean I prefer to do all those things in isolation. I would think this would be common sense to 99% of the population. I want to do things with company, but instead all they ever want to do is sit around and drink and BS. You state you'd be shocked if I was as intelligent as you. I find this ironic given so far you've come across as an utter twit.

aline wrote: Just because I enjoy mountaineering, world travel, photography, reading non-fiction, and attending concerts and visiting museums doesn't mean I prefer to do all those things in isolation..

Pics?

Sounds like you have a superiority complex then. Everyone disgraces you and you can't hang out with them because they are inferior, then you complain that you have no one to hang out with.

NO MATTER WHAT your "highly motivated" interests are - hiking, running, gaming, reading, whatever - you CAN find others who share that interest.

Iwanttokillmyself wrote:

For me now, drinking takes an unhappy person and reverts him to the state of happiness he had when he was younger. Through reflection, I realize that when I'm inebriated I tend to see the good in things, in myself, and in other people, and be much more thankful for what I have, and that positive attitude and outlook allows me to have more fun personally, and be more fun around others.

Well-put. I love being able to ingest a substance that jettisons my brain into positive thinking. When I'm intoxicated I become confident -- even cocky. When I'm sober I am miserable and unconfident. I can act content in sober social settings, but it takes a lot of effort. Alcohol puts me on cruise control, allows me to just ride out an evening because my brain never takes a single piece of information and processes it into a negative emotion. I become a happy zombie.