The inevitable Friday/Saturday night exchange that I've had to suffer through over the past month goes as follows:
Mon Ami: Where's your beer? points at my cup
Me: This is ginger ale. points at cup
Mon Ami: Yeah... so, where's your beer?
Me: I'm not drinking beer.
Mon Ami: Why aren't you drinking beer?
Me: I'm off the sauce.
Mon Ami: You're not off the sauce. Have a beer.
Me: Ginger ale is delicious.
Mon Ami: So is beer.
Me: I don't want a fucking beer. If I wanted a beer, this would be beer. points at cup. Conversation. Over.
There are a couple of things wrong with this.
First of all, beer is not delicious. Nobody starts drinking beer because it's delicious. People drink beer because it's cheap. Also, their older brother Bobby drank beer, so it must be cool (Bobby is also responsibly for many a popped collar). After beginning to drink beer for reasons that have nothing to do with it's flavour, people acquire a taste for it. They then forget how totally fucking gross beer actually is, which allows them to spit out such lies as "Beer is delicious!" No. It decidedly is not.
The main thing wrong with this conversation is that I simply don't want a fucking beer. As I say every time: If I wanted a beer, I would have one. When I wanted to go to Korea, I went. When I wanted to take yoga, I signed up. When I want to stay in bed all day reading books and watching movies, I do. When I want a beer, I have a fucking beer. I don't want one this month. Or possibly next. After that, we'll see.
I love my people. Really, I do. And I understand that they only say ridiculous things like "Beer is delicious!" so that I'll stay out with them for longer. This doesn't really make it any less tiresome.
Socializing sober is not as easy as I anticipated. But, it could be.
17 comments:
when i return to LA for vacations, i never drink. lot of it is that i have to drive everywhere and also that my LA friends are non-drinkers. aside from that, there's A LOT to do in LA that doesn't involve drinking.
it's tough not drinking in Korea cuz socially yer almost always in a situation where everybody's drinking but you. if i were a non-drinker, i couldn't live here.
point is - if you exclude drinking, there's very little to do at night for entertainment.
and ginger ale does taste infinitely much better than beer. me, i'm a soju-man
Ale is delicious. Rice lager is not. Big difference. Like saying Mexican food sucks because you've only had day old Taco Bell.
Beer is delicious, but not Korean beer. It is shit. The 'master race' can't seen to get it right. Every now and then I drink some that gives me red blotches on my face and neck. Great quality control, guys, but...then again...quality really doesn't matter here.
Good point, whiskeynexhaust. I'm certainly not enough of a beer expert to declare that all beer is gross. As you noted, shitty beer is certainly gross, and that seems to be what most folks drink.
culturebook, it is difficult to socialize without the sauce here, but I'm working on it. This has required replacing evening activities with day activities. It hasn't been an easy adjustment. I fall off the wagon about once every couple of weeks.
nb - blotches? Do you continue to drink the stuff that gives you blotches? I'd lecture about how silly that is, but I used to eat this poutine in Daegu which made me just about keel over in pain about an hour later. It was so good that quitting wasn't an option. Ulcers are sad.
Agreed. Beer is NOT delicious. People who think so are frat boys. Or wish they were. ;-)
PS. Anyone who mocks you to any extent for not drinking needs to get over themselves and go back to the high school party they wandered away from. Adjusted adults respect the choices of others.
-Beer is, indeed, delicious, but an acquired taste. Few things compare to the knock your socks off experience of Old Rasputin. Russian Imperial Stouts are heaven in a glass.
-Hite,Cass,Max, and etc. are not beer. They are vile fluids escaped from a Chinese industrial accident.
Barbie- I'm brewing a pineapple pale ale and amber ale this weekend. When they're finished you're welcome to try them.
nb- You're probably having an allergic reaction. Hite and Cass are brewed improperly, which results in fairly high levels of Formaldehyde (not sure how to spell that). Mmmm... embalming fluid.
Diana- You mean these wanna be frat boys?
"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
-Benjamin Franklin
"I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety."
-Shakespeare
Actually, I started drinking beer because it's delicious. Well, 95% of beer is not, but the good stuff, from Belgium and Germany, the expensive stuff, is quite good. Unfortunately, most folks don't want to spend $7 on a bottle of beer.
i prefer pepsi cola :p
amber ale sounds like magic.
As a Bobby, I repent your implications.
Where are you getting this ginger ale from??? As far as I know, it's almost completely unavailable in Busan...(chagrin)
Cans of Canada Dry Ginger Ale can be purchased at Rock and Roll bar in Seomyeon. It's 3000 won a pop. I'm not sure where else you can get it.
Bobby, while I appreciate that it's not your fault that many a Bobby has given your name a certain Frat quality that it can't escape, I'm afraid that I can't give an honest apology for using it. If not for Everybody's Older Brother Bobby, we'd just have an upset Kevin in here instead.
To elaborate on my thought mentioned just as my turn at the pool table came up in Rock and Roll, coffee is also an acquired taste. It too can be considered disgusting at first taste, but yet can become a source of enjoyment, sustenance and even dependence for some.
Most people who drink coffee don't really enjoy coffee. They enjoy a mixture which contains coffee, but rarely the coffee on it's own. Of course, some people do drink it black. They enjoy coffee.
Regardless, bad beer is always bad beer. There is good beer, which I may have unfairly insulted. I may or may not do a follow up post on this.
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