Am I a weird asocial ?

[Oliwerko]

Hi there.

One more "am I weird?" thread, forgive me, I just haven't got any other place to ask. Please read it, I know it is long, but it kills me soooo long. One more thing: do not take this as some kind of child-alcohol-sex-related problem. On topic:

(Just a reminder: I am 17 y/o)
I do not drink. I do not smoke. I do not go dancing to discos in the evening. Is this weird? I mean, sometimes, I had problems for example finding new friends, or maintaining some relationships because of these of my characteristics. I simply do not need litres of alcohol in my life, it does not simply taste me. And to drink only to get drunk? I don't know.... I can make and have fun without it, while others seem to can't. Everyday I hear my classmates boasting, how many tequillas they drank last night, and how horribly drunk they got. And who has been the most drunken one, that person is an absolute king. I do not go with them out drinking and thus I spend less time with people, that are otherwise ok. And I get also dissappointed if I meet a girl, that seems ok, nice and so on, but she belongs to this "alcohol society". Therefore, I am single almost all the time (which is pretty ok in my age I think, but compared to the others, it is a bit different) And there a question arises: Am I an asocial weirdo? Is something wrong with me? I have only a few friends and no GF for ages. For ex., sometimes I go to "afterpartys" after some festivals when I go performing with my band, no matter if I want to go to that disco or not, I go there after the show. I do not dance. I only drink water in the corner and watch people having fun. No one understands, that I simply do not like dancing, I can not dance and it is not so much fun for me to dance. And this is only one of many many examples. When I explained why I do not drink to one girl, she advised me to "just close your eyes and drink it fast". But why ? Why is alcohol SO important to people in my age ? Is it just degrading society, or what ?

I am just worried. I like to be with people, but It is not pleasant to me to be the only sober one from the pack. I could be with them more and go out with them more, if I was a drinker. But I am not. And thus, I feel like an asocial when I sit back at home in the evening thinking of tons of good friends and tons of girls out there, that I just kinda "ignore". That makes me sad.

I need a reasonable explanation. I know that there are quite a few of reasonable people here, so I write my problem here.

Explain it to me please. Am I just stupid kid with a reasonless depression? Or?

Thanks for your time guys, really.  :

[enkerro]

Weird? No.
Are you shy, maybe?

Oh and remember that alcohol (or any substance) is not needed for making friends, remember that
Alcohol is just another way to have fun.

[FSi++]

Nah, start to worry when you'll hit 25 or something.

[vict0r]

I'm glad for you that you don't smoke, but is there a reason for you not to drink? Of course, it's easy to say that you don't need it, but it can be a real social booster to make you more outgoing and social in the surroundings of others. I won't say that alcohol is the answe to everything, but it can be a real helper in moderate amounts! As for dancing, I too usually suck at dancing. When sober, I might step out on the dancefloor and hump the air in some extremely akward and embarrasing movements and then just go back to my seat. Again, the alcohol is the soloution for me in this place. If I have a few beers, I'll get alot looser and I'll be the king of the dancefloor.. At least in my own head.
There is absolutely no need to get shitfaced as this is more likely to cause you 10x embarrasment the next day, but a few beers can really help you get going when somewhere social! A joint or some small puffs of one can also do the same good, but I'd reccoment not to consider trying any stronger stuff than alcohol before you get alot more confident with your intoxicated self.
But if you really don't want to for example drink, try to read some self-help books on how to boost your confident or something like that!   You'll never know what'll help..!

[SSH]

My wife has hardly ever touched alcohol and has never finished a whole drink, let alone got drunk and she's a whole lot more sociable than me. I've never much enjoyed getting drunk (and the consequences afterwards even less ) and have only done it say 3 or 4 times in my 32 years of life. But I do like a nice beer, or glass of wine with friends... but most teenagers tend to concentrate on quantity rather than quality.

[Gord10]

"Shy" is the most correct word for this sitation, I think. And you are just different from the society you are in; that's all.

You can be sure, drinking not is not worse as drinking (heh, I guess this was a weird sentence, but you got the point). Me and some of my friends are slowly being alcoholics, this is not good.

[Tuomas]

Yeah really though, I don't fancy drinking either. I just have a hard time stopping it, kind of, it just is a nice way of relaxing. And here I mean having a beer or to here and there. The point however is not in the drinking, but in the social situation that it gives an excuse to. I never get friends at clubs or bars, usually they're met a different way. However, having a pint and enjoying it together makes a good way of seeing other people. Other thing is sports, but that's usually for kids smaller than 18.

I called a couple of my mates, who I know live here now, but whom I haven't seen in 5 yeras, and I suggested we should go drinking sometime. Why? Because it would be relaxing, and something we all enjoy, unlike lan parties or skating or skiing or school or what ever. But don't worry, drinking and smoking won't make you any more social, it'll just make you wayward, and true, these people sometimes have a lot to do with their friends. Yeah, you're not a freak, you just have a wrong image of people, kind of like my friends, but they drink alongside with that

EDIT: or I might just well say what everyone wants to say: Yeah, you're a God damn freak, please don't talk to us anymore, I can't let myself be seen with the likes of you!

[enkerro]

I bit off-topic, but I think LAN parties would be alot more social if they just took off their headphones

[LimpingFish]

I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't "do" drugs, I don't socialise beyond the norm.

Does that make me "weird"? Of course not. I makes me who I am.

The opposite of being "shy" is not "drink/drug/f*ck myself silly". The opposite of being shy, is to be confident, not arrogant. To be outgoing, not reckless. To realise your worth, despite what you think "society" considers acceptable/sexy/cool.

A desire to be accepted is understandable, especially in someone so young. But if, deep down, you realise it means you have to become something you're not, then it won't lead to happiness.

You have to know who you are, before you decide to be who you want to be.

[Oliwerko]

Wow, thanks all of you for replies.

Gord10 -> Yeah, maybe it is something like that. But then, the question is: why do I live in a society that is different than me? I mean, you cant choose classmates, but you can choose friends. Why do I gather friends that are different than me? Everyone chooses society he/she lives in to some extent. That is, why I am worried.

LimpingFish -> Nicely expressed. But there is a catch. I do not feel satisfied when I sit back home. But I am just like that. On one side, I have no problem accepting myself "as I am" and I am glad that it is like that, but on the other side, I am dissapointed because I am not having fun like the others have and I am alone a lot, and that is not good for me.

[Sylvr]

Hmm..I have not much to say, except that we are much the same I think. I know it's not much help, but I said it anyway.

[Gord10]

"I mean, you cant choose classmates, but you can choose friends. Why do I gather friends that are different than me?"

If your friends are the only ones who you managed to be friends and there is no someone like you around you and you couldn't be friend with those indifferent people; then this is the reason.

"Why do I live in a society that is different than me?"
You are not the only person who lived in a society different than them. They develop their own characteristics being independent from their environment, and they move to another society when the time comes. Maybe you meet your own kind of people if you move to another place for school/work, etc.? You know, it is early to decide you are too different from the society when you are 17.

[Lad]

 I say: Wow!

If you ask me then you are normal person(as am I if talking about drinking and stuff )! Why I say so? Because I do not drink, nor smoke, nor do drugs! Neither do my friends. I agree that it's hard to find friends, but keep looking for such, of course you may not be popular,but hey you've got brains.
It may be weird to read, but in this young society "It is normal to be abnormal and it is abnormal to be normal!" (If you didn't get it then tell me I'll explain it)


I find drinking till your drunk, smoking or doing drugs unintelligent activities.  Firstly, wastes your health and secondly, wastes your money!(and the problems both cause) And if someone finds these kind of activities cool or funny I just must say, there is something wrong with his logical thinking or there isn't any.

[Oliwerko]

Gord, You are probably right, I am just wondering why is it so. But I feel that I can easily change things now, and it is becoming a stereotype that I hear people telling each other how they had fun here and there, and every time I tell myself "Awww, again, I was not there." My problem is not that I do not like all people around. My problem is, that I like them, but I can not maintain closer friendship with them sometimes, because I just cant get used to the "common good things" like discos and so on.

I am sad that I am not there, where the fun is going on. I would like to have fun with them, but instead of that, I sit here and write this.

Lad, Why wow ? I get it with the ab/normality. It is somewhat dissapointing that people that are otherwise all ok are big fans of these "activities". That makes them half-friends. And there a dillema comes.

Man, this is a terrible dillema! I can now really feel, why are people in my age sometimes so mad - it is a wild age in your head.

[Lad]

 It's Wow, because you even doubt that your an OK person, and what you do is right.(not drinking and stuff) Sometimes I think that I might have missed out on something, but to be honest if I think real hard, I'm glad that these kind of people aren't my friends.(doesn't mean I hate them of course) I never spend my time with my classmates after school, I keep as far away as possible from those activities. Also I'm not popular but Im respected in my class and that's what matters.

[LimpingFish]

I understand. You feel like you are missing out on something, and because other people seem to have found that "something", you feel that if you become like them then you will find that "something" too.

There is no way for anyone other than you to decide which path is the "right" one.

Will drinking make you more confident? Do you think "clubbing" is for you?

You say you don't like to dance. I don't like to dance, but it's not because of a dislike for the act of dancing. It's because I think people will laugh at me, and I'll look foolish. They probably wouldn't, and I would probably only look like a sweating 6" 3' dude wobbling about on the dancefloor. It wouldn't be the end of the world. But it's very hard to take that first step.

You dislike dancing, because you're not comfortable dancing. Perfectly understandable. It's not a flaw, it's just a lack of confidence.

The truth is, some of the people who are dancing are probably doing so because whatever they have drank/ingested has artificially enabled them to bypass any self-doubt they may otherwise feel.

Being shy and quiet, something which often unfairly labelled "anti-social", is not the result of a defect in your personality.

Conversely, drinking absurd amounts has little to do with gaining confidence. And people who feel they need to do so, possess no confidence besides a facade of false confidence provided by the alcohol itself. The act of getting yourself drunk only requires reckless abandon.

Like I said, this is something which you need to decide for yourself. If you feel drinking will make you more confident, regardless of your distaste for it, then that's up to you to decide. Will it make you more attractive to the opposite sex? Maybe, but probably only because they will most likely be drunk too. Will it enable you to join in with the "fun" your friends are having? Same answer; probably only because they will also be drunk.

Nobody can tell you "Do" or "Don't". There's no magic formula you need to learn.

Do you want to be this person? Is that your definition of fun? If not, then the "something" your friends have is probably not what you are looking for.

[Andail]

At 17 it's too early to start worrying these things; your entire personality can/will change several times during the next 5-10 years.

I don't know about drinking, I just tend to enjoy getting drunk once in a while. Never completely wasted, not to the point where I become another person or start losing memory, just slightly un-sober. It's relaxing and it helps me digest my thoughts and emotions.
I'm rather social and have a rather easy time making friends, but I was a late bloomer and was rather shy and introvert in my late teens. When I was 17 I had never been drunk, and my social life was mostly about playing games with my (strictly male) geek-crew.

My girlfriend is rather strictly non-drinking; she sometimes has a few alcoholic sodas just to fit in the Swedish mentality, and I've only seen her remotely intoxicated once or twice so far. Still, she's a social miracle, and can make friends just by scratching her back. So don't worry that skipping the drinks will make you lonely; in the long run it's all about who you are.

But hey, it's like they say in the bible; wine is wonderful.

[SSH]

Still, she's a social miracle, and can make friends just by scratching her back.

That's because she uses her tongue to scratch her back...  :o :

[Raggit]

I was in a very similar (still am, actually) situation.  A lot of the people I know are party animals.  The only thing that matters to them is getting drunk, getting high, and sleeping with as many people as possible.  They brag about how drunk they got, or how high they got and how the hallucinated.  

I'd watch my peers running around late into the night, whooping it up and being wild, and I felt like I should be doing this too.  It seemed there was something wrong with me that I wasn't doing this stuff, and that I only had a limited amount of teenage years to enjoy myself, and so on.  Being a teenager is hard, and I've hardly enjoyed any of it.  There's a lot of pressure on you, telling you who you are, who you should be, and who you will be.

Eventually I learned not to worry about what other people think of me.  Drinking yourself stupid isn't something to brag about.  They're being very shallow when they brag about it, and you're better off if you're deeper than that.  

I would much rather spend an evening talking late into the night about intellectually stimulating topics than to run around getting high/drunk, making trouble and partying.  

You should be proud to not be like that, to be different.  You sound more mature than many your age, and that's a good thing.

[nihilyst]

I'm not any different from you. I'm twenty-three now, and I've never been drunk, smoked a cigarette or have been on a big "blast your brains out"-party. Still I got some very good friends, and not all of them are like me, but some. I've never felt, that anything was missing in my life. And don't want to go on long holiday trips in far countries, I don't want to have  fivehundred people in my ICQ list. And I like it that way.

If you don't like drinking alcohol, don't do it just to be part of whatever community. Do what you please, and you'll feel much better eventually.