> The interesting thing is how people react to it. For some reason you are expected to provide a reason for why you don't drink. I don't smoke either but nobody

> The interesting thing is how people react to it. For some reason you are expected to provide a reason for why you don't drink. I don't smoke either but nobody asks me why. I've noticed also that it makes people uncomfortable if you're not drinking. When I do go out now I drink diet soft drinks so that I don't get constantly asked why I don't have a drink. Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-X2zPMB5dk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-X2zPMB5dk I never drank aside from a few sips in past attempts to placate people bothering me about drinking. I used to be more annoyed by people who seem to really want to know why, but I've found that simply being firm about not drinking is usually enough to get people to drop the subject. I don't usually give a reason, as that seems to be an invitation for others to harass you. I also will refuse to even sip an alcoholic beverage for the same reason. Some people seem to take the fact that you don't drink as personally offensive, as if you are judging others for drinking. But I really don't care that much about how much you drink any more than I care about how much ketchup you put on your fries. That is, I don't care much at all unless you're using obviously too much. The view that non-drinkers are judgmental seems to be caused by a combination of psychological projection and the drinker having mixed feelings about alcohol. If I had to give a reason, it would be something like this: I never was convinced of any benefit from drinking, but I can see many risks. The main benefit to me is that many drinkers will socially exclude non-drinkers, but I think a better solution is to avoid people who don't like non-drinkers. The reasons I've heard from people about why they drink or want to encourage me to drink vary a lot. One that comes to mind is "I want you to be happy", which don't find convincing because I am perfectly happy and don't think drinking would improve my happiness. The people who insist that I just haven't tried the right drink are getting tiring. If you didn't like ketchup and I said that you haven't tried the right ketchup and then insisted that you try small amounts of a half dozen ketchups, that would be considered fairly weird. But it happens to non-drinkers.