It's my birthday and I'll refuse to drink if I want to

No, I don't want a drink. Yes, I know I'm 18. See, I've got this thing about putting poison into my body... I try not to. Oh, yes, I know that makes me an extreme ultrahypernuttyconservativefreak. See, the thing is, I DON'T WANT TO BE LIKE YOU. _{(I'll pause for a moment while you recover from the shock of that statement. Ok? Ok.)}. For further reference here are some more things that I do not want:

• I do not want to get piss drunk and wake up not knowing what I did last night.
• I do not want to find courage, happiness, or myself in a bottle.
• I do not want to lose what little intelligence and common sense I have. (Buildings Tumble)
• I do not want to rely on a substance to make me feel and I do not want to run to one to escape from feeling.
• I do not want to lose my inhibitions through a temporary means of running away from reality. Some of them are good. Others aren't. But I'll deal with that. I don't want or need your poison.
• I do not want to act the way people act when they drink. I'm too much of a jerk when I'm sober. It won't be any better if I'm drunk.
• I don't want to end up with a drinking problem. And, yes, it would happen.
• I don't want to submit to one more of 21^st century American society's screwed up social rules because I'm too afraid of looking like weird freak. So I won't. So stop asking. (Maybe you didn't hear that the first 100 times. STOP ASKING). (Beautiful America)

I don't want to drink. I don't want to smoke. And I don't want to be like you. DEAL WITH IT. I know you think alcohol and pot are harmless. And you know what? I DON'T CARE. THEY'RE NOT. I know you're too damn hip and modern to look at me as anything other than some crazy fundamentalistic 18^th century Puritan throwback. But guess what? I DON'T WANT TO TURN OUT LIKE YOU

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY AND I'LL REFUSE TO DRINK IF I WANT TO

I'm a loser? So going to loud parties, dancing, getting drunk, getting laid, and puking your guts out afterwards makes you a winner?

I'm tired of it. I run into this attitude all over the place. Here it is, folks, the absolute truth: A LARGE PERCENTAGE OF THE POPULATION THINKS THAT IF YOU DO NOT REGULARLY ATTEND CERTAIN TYPES OF SOCIAL GATHERINGS, YOU ARE AUTOMATICALLY A LOSER. Pure and simple.

Maybe it's just because I live in a college town, but it seems like I'm getting judged constantly because of my disinterest in the party styles of the masses. I get it all the time from guys: "Don't you 'go out'?" Sure I go out. To poetry readings. To anime meetings. To friends' houses. To Putt-Putt to play video games, hell, I don't know. But when I tell people the places I frequent when I leave my house, I am met with something like this: "No, I mean GO OUT, like clubs!" Strange . . . these people don't consider my form of entertainment "real" entertainment. I am judged by these people as "not having a life" because I do not like to go to clubs or large beer bash parties.

It seems as though these people think I'm just not cool enough because I prefer poetry readings and one-on-one activities with friends to their raging keggers. When they hear I don't go to these, they immediately assume I'm socially inept, nerdy, a computer geek, probably fat and ugly and a big bitch besides. If someone is not into the club scene they are automatically a complete dork and are "missing real life." I have had people regard me with pity and incredulous stares when I answer truthfully that I'd rather just hang out at home or go to a movie with a friend . . . when I am offered the chance to go to a club or party and I refuse, people are like, "WHAT?? Why???" Why would I rather be inside than "out" at a club? Why do I choose to engage in intellectual pursuits rather than get drunk every weekend? Why does my sorry ass choose building homepages as a hobby in favor of mate-swapping? I'll tell you.

The reasons I don't like clubs

1. They're loud. I have very sensitive ears and I don't like music to be so loud that it literally vibrates the walls. I like to be able to hear my friends talk to me without screaming. I like waking up the next morning without my ears ringing.

2. They play music I don't like. On the whole, anyway. I have rather obscure taste in music, and unless clubs have started playing Weird Al or Suzanne Vega when I wasn't looking, I have little interest. I am exposed to the "music of today" through friends and acquaintances and generally have little to no interest in it.

3. I don't like to drink. I am four feet eleven inches tall and weigh about a hundred and ten pounds (149 cm, 51 kg), and am female. In case you don't know what I'm getting at, that makes me liable to get VERY drunk VERY quickly on VERY little. (I've been told that most women generally lack a certain enzyme in their stomachs that men have--it helps to process alcohol.) I also do not have a history of drinking and therefore have built up little tolerance--nor do I want to. I don't enjoy the feeling of being drunk, and furthermore I do not need to be drunk in order to function socially. Not to mention that I don't very much enjoy being around drunk people . . . they're ridiculous, though funny to watch--from a distance.

4. I don't like to dance, except to be goofy sometimes. I'm not a dancer, alone or with others. Being asked to dance doesn't float my boat, and I probably wouldn't know what to do if someone did ask. This also ties into the fact that I don't like the music (mentioned above), so it doesn't inspire me to move at all. It's just not my thing--some people get annoyed with me over this, asking "how could you not want to dance when the music is playing?" I suppose it's the same reason hearing a beautiful song doesn't make some of THOSE people want to write poetry: WE'RE DIFFERENT.

5. I AM NOT LOOKING FOR A MAN AND FURTHERMORE REALLY DESPISE BEING HIT ON. Many people go to clubs to "hook up." The people who go to clubs to "hook up" often assume that everyone else is there for the same thing, and use this (and alcohol) as their excuse to shamelessly hit on everyone that appeals to them. I get hit on enough without going someplace that doubles as a meat market; sad as it is, that would just be asking for it.

So, in a nutshell, I hate a lot of things about clubs, find them boring, and have better things to do with my time. These reasons seem to make no difference to the people who can't understand why I don't "go out." They insist that because I don't like this stuff, I must not know how to have a "good time." Well, thank you very much, but a poetry reading IS a "good time" for me, as is chatting with a friend, going bowling, or playing tennis. That doesn't make me a loser. That makes me different. And believe it or not, *I* happen to think that a lot of people who go to clubs and parties are losers, so it goes both ways. There is not a clear-cut definition of loserhood here, fellas . . . you may be thinking I'm a loser for not "clubbing," but I'm sitting here thinking just as badly of you. Here's why.

1. Drinking is bad for you. Yes, we all know that beer and its alcoholic cousins are not especially healthy beverages and that alcohol damages your liver and whatnot. But it's bad for you as a person, too. It inhibits your perceptions and makes you a slobbering idiot when you drink too much. Lots of people say they need to drink to "relax," but I think that if you feel you *need* to drink in order to "be yourself," then there IS no "yourself" and you probably need to do some soul-searching instead of beer-drinking. And what do I get when I say I don't drink? "What are you, some kind of prude?" Um . . . no, I just like my reality the way it is, thanks . . .

2. It's pathetic when you spend every weekend of your life searching for someone to bang. Sure, some people who are looking for a mate are looking for "the real thing," but some are just looking for sex, and even those who are looking for a long-term relationship and eventual marriage are *really* barking up the wrong tree when they're looking for their future spouse in a damn bar. It bugs me when people have an all-consuming need to find a significant other, but that is really another story--all I'll say now is that I think "looking for a mate" makes little sense.

3. What does "clubbing" accomplish, anyway? Okay, it's fun. I buy that! That's a perfectly good reason to do it, just like it's a perfectly good reason for me to play ping-pong. But you must admit that other than being fun, it does not accomplish anything except emptying your wallet, filling your stomach with beer if you're so inclined, and possibly allowing you to score. If those things are among your goals, okay . . . but when you laugh at me, saying, "Oh my God, what a loser you are . . . sitting home to write BOOKS while I'm out there partying!" . . . well, let's just think for a second and figure out which one of us will have something to be proud of at the end of the night.

4. "It's something to do." I think a lot of people go out to clubs because they're bored and they want to have some fun. Putting aside any judgments I have on whose fun is better, let me just say that I am almost NEVER bored because just my own brain is enough to entertain me for hours. I think that if you don't at least sometimes do something creative, or at least something *varied*, you're not making the most of your life. You don't have to do what I do (i.e., write, create homepages, whatever) to be creative, but I just don't think you're justified in calling me a big loser when every weekend your agenda includes getting drunk in a loud club and trying to get laid because "it's something to do."