This is a Last Word piece I did for Writing Media, about how awkward life is if you don't drink when you move to University. As you might be able to tell from the piece - it is VERY awkward. Enjoy!
Moving to university for the first time, you expect a certain amount of adjustment and change, while you settle in. First you have the nightmare of trying to move everything you own (or think you might need at some point during the year) into your room. Then you have the terrifying experience of being left in a strange place with people you don’t know – and then trying to get on with them.
You get all the introductory questions like, “So what course are you doing?” and “Where are you from?” This then progresses to desperate questions on television, films or sports to try and find common ground. Then you get the more complex social interactions of later conversations: “Can I borrow your milk?” “Do you want to join us? We’re having a party,” “Going down the union? We’re getting a round in,” and “Do you fancy a drink?” in an attempt to bond. This sort of conversation usually lasts for around a week before people actually start getting along when they aren’t drunk.
Of course, if you don’t drink alcohol you become somewhat hampered in this effort to be social and get along because the only question you get left with is, “Can I borrow your milk?” and of course, you can’t actually ‘borrow’ milk per se, which leads to some confusion if you’re an English student.
Leaving the English student aside, if you’re a non alcoholic – I mean non- drinker – then you’re left out and pretty much ostracized. This is probably because everyone else on campus sees it as their duty to consume as much alcohol as humanly possible, stay as drunk as attainable with the money at hand (and so become a part of Alcoholics Anonymous when they leave University) and ruin/pickle their livers. And that’s just in the first week.
One of these duties of chronic alcoholism, apparently, is to reform the non-believers – I mean non-alcoholics - with constant cries of “Go on, just have a shot of vodka,” or “Surely a Fosters won’t hurt?” so they too can go to lectures still inebriated. And look like idiots while five times over the legal limit. And throw up everywhere.
It would be fine if you couldn’t drink, say for religious reasons, but it seems people can’t understand why anybody wouldn’t want to drink by choice. It doesn’t occur to them that maybe you don’t like the taste of it, or just have no interest in getting inebriated. And after a term of being bugged and harassed about this, it’s time to take drastic action.
The choices are:
1.Start drinking (it’s not a good idea in any situation to submit to peer pressure)
2.Try and ignore them for another three months (though ignoring them didn’t work for the first three months)
3.Lie and tell them it’s for medical reasons (and have everyone speculate on what exact medical problem it is you have)
or 4. Make up a religion (this one is less likely to work if they have any knowledge of a little thing called Google, but will most likely get them to back off.)
I, of course, decided on the latter choice as I’m just awkward. The religion I made up (with a little help) is called L’Maya (standing for Leave Me Alone You Arseholes) and tolerates no drinking at all. Oh and I think I should mention a little something about respect for others and their wishes too.