Saturday, September 09, 2006

Signs of the apocalypse?

I'll give you the facts, and then let you reach your own conclusions.

Last week I had a third date with my maybe-sorta new friend: she came over for a light meal, at which I cracked open one of the bottles of wine that Bert had sent me from Sonoma; afterwards, we went to see a movie. It was great fun, except for this: after she'd finished her first (quite small) glass of wine, I refilled it; we were still eating and talking, and the bottle was right there on the table. However! When we got up to leave, fifteen or so minutes later, I noticed that she hadn't touched that second glass.

And then at a party this week I discovered that my favorite new faculty member doesn't drink.

What is this world coming to, when academics don't drink?

And more importantly, who am *I* going to drink with?

11 comments:

Pilgrim/Heretic said...

Me! :)

Anonymous said...

You could drink by yourself, like I am right now!

Although I don't suppose wine goes well with football and chinese food.

-scr

Anonymous said...

Well, non-drinkers are useful; I could be your designated driver...

phd me said...

I don't suppose a long-distance drinking buddy is much use, huh? I'm free tomorrow, though...

Bardiac said...

Well, on the other side... I love wine. LOVE. WINE.

I also have little alcohol tolerance. So, I really enjoy a glass of wine, especially with good company. I savor both.

But if I'm going to drive within the next four hours, or make sense conversationally, or just do anything much other than curl up in a corner and nap, I can't drink more than one glass of wine.

Maybe your friend shares my low tolerance?

(And the no drinking thing may be an after effect of worrying about alcoholism and such. I know people who don't drink, not because they don't like to drink, but because they worry that they like it way too much, if that makes sense?)

Dr. Virago said...

Bullock is making you a virtual Side Car as I type...

I wouldn't worry about having non-drinking friends since I doubt very much that they are judgmental about those who do. As Bardiac points out, it could be a physiological tolerance issue. Or alcoholism in the family. Anyway, I have colleagues who regularly get me drunk because I forget that I can't keep up with a hard-drinking oenophile of hearty Swedish stock, but then they are also friends with my Miltonist colleague who, despite being Jewish, lives an ascetic life of Puritan clean-living. (Speaking of which, you might be in the wrong field! Te-hee!) He does, however, have excellent taste in wine and always *brings* a lovely bottle to parties. So the non-drinkers are sometimes friends to drinkers in more ways than just being designated drivers!

Anonymous said...

to reply again...

I just ended up pulling into a winery with a friend, on a whim... hoping the tasting was free.

$5 per person? Not bad, I guess I can swing that!

The tasting fee goes towards any purchase? I can live with that.. maybe I'll pick something up. $12 per bottle? Oh, no, that's the case price. $30 per bottle, hmm, seems steep.

Wait, what's that? You can mix and match in a case and still swing the 60% discount? Sold.

What on earth am I going to do with 12 bottles of wine?

... I think I have an idea, though.

-scr

Flavia said...

Dude, bro--I think you need to send some of those to me! And yes, I do in fact drink alone (usually only a single drink, for those of you concerned that you might unknowingly be reading the ravings of a raging alcoholic of a blogger), and with some regularity. But I need people to go out with! To make it fun! If only all these kind bloggers were in my geographic region, life would be so much nicer.

Dr. V: thank Bullock for me. Someday, perhaps, my travels will take me through Rust Belt City (or yours through, uh, wherever it is that I am), and we'll make these non-virtual drinks for a change.

DH: yes, I know that feeling, too. Most of my friends drink the hard stuff, but every so often I'll run into someone who looks at my liquor supply in puzzlement, finally saying, "Oh, left over from an old party, or something?" And I have to say, "No--it's for me." And then I realize that very little of it is more than a few months old.

Pantagruelle said...

It's 12 midnight and I wouldn't be posting on your blog right now if I hadn't been drinking--and got a 9am meeting in the morning to top things off. My bestest buddy in the whole world, who is a full tenured prof, is constantly complaining that the junior faculty at big southern school don't drink or do drugs. I agree with that. WTF??? What happened to the 70's? Why does our generation have to miss out on all the fun? Ok, so I grew up in the generation in which the RCMP (yes, the real deal RCMP in their funky uniforms!) came to our elementary school and warned us of the dangers of drugs and drinking and driving. That doesn't mean that I don't drink or do drugs. It just means that I don't drive. Don't they have cabs in your town? There's no excuse for not having drinking buddies at your U except that you simply haven't met them yet. You've jsut met the uptight folks who are concerned with appearances and presenting themselves as "serious academics" (what a f'in joke!) but keep looking and I'm sure you'll eventually find some fun faculty to hang with. You might just have to look to the older generation, that's all...

Flavia said...

Pantagruelle, you're cracking me the hell up--in part because I, too, have a bad habit of commenting on blogs after I've had a few drinks, only to wake up the next morning and think, "oh, shit--what did I WRITE?" So far, it hasn't ever been anything particularly embarrassing or usually even noticeably loopy. . . but I'm just waiting for that day.)

And as for the non-legal substances: funny, but in my grad program there were many people who partied like that--but there DO seem fewer in the rest of the young professoriate. Or maybe we just need to start hanging out with, I dunno, sociologists or something.

Oso Raro said...

When Mr. Gordo and I were domesticated, we had a full bar and a stocked wine cabinet, and all our friends (and us) drank with adult abandon, which is to say socially, joyfully, guiltlessly. After all, we were grownups now. No more Boone's!

Now that I live alone, I have a bottle of tequila (a housewarming present) that I don't drink, a bottle of wine in the cabinet waiting for a party, and a lovely bottle of Maker's Mark that is my delicious treat. Even in summertime it is so refreshing!

I tend not to drink so much anymore for a lot of reasons, but none of which has to do with not liking grog. So your new friend is a teetotaler? Oh well, I'm sure she's good for certain things. Now go out and find a drinking buddy! You can be polyamorous, can't you? :-P Maybe Mr. Gordo? He loves his red wine and white rum! Although he is not exactly around the corner from you.

(pours you a Maker's Mark, one large ice cube, in a fancy cocktail glass from Crate and Barrel; pours myself a larger one)