WHY I DIDN’T GO TO LUNCH
Based on a true story.
“You don’t drink?”
It’s all people ask me now.
If you don’t know me, well, I was a social drinker for as long as I can remember. Not by choice, of course. I’m not the sort of person who would drink in a natural state—it’s damaging, and it’s both physically and spiritually addictive.
But, I drank because of circumstance. I drank at parties, to feel more comfortable on dates, to fit in.
And then I finally decided to stop.
I remember my first weekend during my summer internship in college. Every day, after work, they wanted to go out. And I would say, ‘no, I don’t drink’. The girls would look at me like I was crazy and, one time, one of them said, “Emily, that won’t work. That’s not how we do things.”
The curse continues.
At work today, Jason (whose real name I will graciously leave out), asked me out to lunch. I told him, “I don’t drink.”
He said, “Oh, you don’t have to drink. It’s just lunch.”
I suggested a lunch place with a non-alcoholic drinks menu. “It’s just lunch,” he said, “we don’t have to get drinks at all.”
“I’d rather not be somewhere with a lot of drinking, though,” I said. Earlier I mentioned the spiritual effect it has on me. I personally believe it’s because—I read this yesterday on Instagram—the suffix “DRINK” in the Ancient Greek means “negative energy”.
We talked for the next couple minutes. I explained, quite briefly, the reasons I am sober. But Jason was getting visibly frustrated, eyebrows furrowing a little deeper with every line.
Finally he asked me, “Why are you totally sober? You’re talking about it like it’s some sort of life-cure. But you weren’t even drinking much before, from what you tell me. What’s the benefit? How is your life different?”
“Because the future is non-alcoholic,” I told him. “Did you listen to the Huberman Lab episode on alcohol? It’s horrible stuff. We’ve known it for a long time now in the wellness space—Huberman is more for tech bros—but you might want to check it out.”
He told me he had listened to the Huberman Lab episode, which made things even more confusing. Then he relented and said, “OK, let’s go to your lunch place. Can I see the menu?”
I showed it to him on my phone.
“Oh, we can’t do this,” he said. “Their food is made with seed oils.”
“What’s so bad about that?” I asked, which prompted an entirely unreasonable and unintelligible tirade about seed oils and why they’re the bane of human existence. I hadn’t heard about it before but, then again, this is someone who doesn’t even know the dangers of alcohol.
I asked him if he might consider eating there, just once. Seed oils couldn’t be that bad once, could they?
“Yes, they can,” he said, “it throws off my whole energy and productivity.”
So I told Jason to kindly fuck off, and we went our own separate ways for lunch.
OK, I went on a tangent there. I guess it’s like that Rupi Kaur quote,
“The thing about writing is I can’t tell if it’s healing or destroying.”
With alcohol, I can tell. I’m sober now, and it means I can finally enjoy life.