How to Be a Person (17 page)

How to Drink Like an Adult

One’s introduction to alcohol often involves kegs and keg-stands and shots and putting it up your butt (is that really a thing? Do you really want to find out?). Oh, the fun! We mean that. But there comes a time to put away childish things (while noting that you can always come back to them later) and drink like an adult. Such a time might include a first date, when one thing not to do is offer them a funnel in the movie-theater parking lot; or dinner with someone’s parents, when one thing not to do is propose a round of Jäger; or, at some point, the entire rest of your life. (You will maybe regress to play beer pong just once in a while. It will be surprisingly fun.) Here’s how.

Do not order a rum-and-Coke. Do not order a Diet-and-anything. Do not drink anything that is pink or anything that is blended. Do not drink malt liquor or schnapps of any variety. Do not drink anything containing flecks of gold, or taurine, or caffeine.
Do not order any drink that has more than three components; two components are preferable (for the exception to this rule, see
Why Do the Drinks at This Bar Cost So Goddamn Much
?).

Tip your bartender. This means $1 per drink, minimum, every time. What??? You’re already paying for the drink!!! And it’s only a however-few-dollars beer!!!!! Ah, how right you are. However, you are now drinking like an adult, and an inviolable part of the social contract is that one drink equals one dollar in tippage (if not more). The good news is that if you tip well and say thank you, bartenders will quite often eventually buy you a round. See how that works?

Do not partake in any drinking that involves dropping one beverage into another. Do not do shots. While drinking games may have their pleasures, rest assured you are venturing out of the realm of adultlike drinking if dice, cards, coins, word-cues, elaborate hand gestures, or rules of any kind are involved. Do not gulp.

Drinking is the accompaniment to another activity, such as conversation or eating; drinking is not an activity unto itself. Do not say or do things that are dramatically different from the things you would say or do while not drinking. Do not cause difficulty for others due to your drinking, and do not let drinking cause difficulties for you. The only rules of adult drinking are more like guidelines, and they are ones that also apply to life as a whole: Don’t get too complicated about it, and don’t be an ass.

On Drinking and Driving

You’re not better at it than other people. It is completely irrelevant that you’re just going to the store, or whatever. DO. NOT. DO. IT.

Beer: It’s All Good

One’s path with our friend beer generally follows a certain trajectory: You have sips of beer as a kid and it tastes terrible; you drink crummy, cheap beer and it tastes terrible; you have more money and drink microbrews, and they are better; and maybe you venture into Belgian and other schmancy beers, and they taste even better, and you drink them sometimes, otherwise enjoying microbrews or even cheap beer (or variations thereof, such as Corona) when you want something that’s just cold and refreshing. In extreme cases, you might start brewing your own beer and become a real beer geek, which is as good a hobby as any. The thing is, all beer is good beer; to each their own. Don’t get too wound up about it.

Wine: What the Hell’s the Deal?

One’s path with our friend wine generally follows the same general trajectory we just discussed with our friend beer: At first, it just tastes gross; then you drink cheap wine, which also tastes gross; then you spring for something a little better, and yay for that; then maybe eventually you drift off into the ether of wine enthusiasm,
spending lots of money and using lots of insane adjectives and becoming more annoying by the minute (we once heard a wine described—seriously—as “like lathered ponies”).

A thing to know is that the step up from grocery-store jug wine to, say, wine that’s $10 a bottle is a worthwhile step. Assuming you’re 21, go to a neighborhood wine shop and throw yourself on their mercy—tell them you have $10 to spend and that you want a crisp-tasting, dry white or a not-too-big red. (You can mess around with sweeter wines, or chardonnay, or cabernet, if you want—it’s your life.) Trader Joe’s has some decent stuff, too. Not to be unpatriotic, but conventional wisdom holds that lower-priced French or Spanish or Italian or South American wines are better than ours. After a while, you’ll start getting an idea about what you like, and sometimes you’ll spend a little more, and you’ll be able to order wine at a restaurant, and it’ll be neat.

Oh, wait! There’s also rosé. For a long time, rosé was the redheaded stepchild of wine—sticky-sweet and bound to give you a headache. They’re still pink, but rosés today are, by and large, refreshing summertime greatness. Moreover, $10 is a perfectly good amount to spend on a bottle of rosé (that’s $2.50 a glass). Look for a lighter-colored rosé—the pretty peachy ones taste better than the bright-pink strumpets. Chill well, and enjoy outdoors if possible.

Why Do the Drinks at This Bar Cost So Goddamn Much?

Hey, wait a minute—there aren’t any TVs at this bar. It’s all old-fashionedy up in here, with duck decoys and shelves of ancient tomes and stuff! The bartenders are wearing old-timey garb like vests and ties. They seem so serious! Also, they are taking nearly literally forever to make each drink, which costs nearly literally one million dollars.

Congratulations and/or condolences, friend: You have found yourself on the vanguard of alcohol consumption, in the realm of the “craft cocktail.” The name of the place probably has something to do with Prohibition (when ALCOHOL WAS ILLEGAL IN THESE HERE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, for the 13 long years from 1920 to 1933, if you can fathom that), and it exists with the sole purpose of making you a complicated and expensive and probably very tasty drink. There aren’t any blended margaritas, because they do not have a blender—they have a special stick for hand “muddling,” among other arcane cocktail tools.

Here, you must first resign yourself to the price of your drink plus 20 percent—at these bars, you look like a shitheel if you tip less than 20 percent. Then you might ask to see the cocktail menu and choose something off it that sounds vaguely up your alley, or that just has a name you like, or completely at random. When these bartenders are good, they can make something that sounds horrifying taste like a liquid unicorn. If you want to up the ante,
you could ask what local spirits they particularly recommend, or whether the bar is making its own bitters or barrel-aged cocktails or shrub (it’s a thing!). But watch out: You might find yourself quickly out of your depth, nodding while you get an earful of you know not what.

Perhaps the best tactic at the craft cocktail bar is to describe, very briefly, what you like—e.g., brown liquor (always brown liquor! These people will go around the bend if you ask for vodka!), bitter/sour rather than sweet, no orange flavors—and ask what they’d recommend. Say you want rye—they love that.

Cheers, friend.

8. WHAT NO ONE ELSE WILL TELL YOU ABOUT DRUGS

BY CHRISTOPHER FRIZZELLE, BRENDAN KILEY, AND DAVID SCHMADER

Don’t Do Drugs! Okay? Seriously! Ever …

D
rugs are illegal and dangerous, and you should never do them. They can destroy your brain, your nostrils, your future employment prospects, and your chance at happiness. Anyone who tries to tell you that drugs are no big deal is a drug dealer.

That said: WOO-HOO! College! The word practically
smells
like weed. We just wrote that first paragraph in case your grandma flips open to that page.

To reiterate, we’re not telling you to try drugs.

But if you are going to try them anyway—and if you’re anywhere near open-minded, you probably are—you deserve some no-bullshit information. And in a country seized by hysterical and exaggerated antidrug messaging from the government and your grandma, nonhysterical, nonexaggerated information about drugs is hard to come by. We came by this information the old-fashioned way: doing drugs. Some drugs will suit you better than others; some drugs that have a certain effect on everyone else will have the opposite effect on you. After all, individual metabolic and brain-chemical reactions vary widely. Take half a dose or less the first time you take anything, and see how it makes you feel.

If experience has taught us anything, it’s that, as with anything worth doing, drugs demand moderation. Used habitually, any drug is habit-forming, and things you learn to do while high—study for exams, meet parents of boyfriends/girlfriends, survive the holidays—you’ll be tempted to do high for the rest of your life. However, with proper care and restraint, collegiate drug experiments can be a source of enlightenment, entertainment, and adventure.

If you feel like you’re going off the rails, don’t hesitate to get help right away, and don’t feel ashamed. Addiction isn’t a moral failing—it’s a roll of the genetic dice. And, as with most things in
life, it is far, far better to recognize a problem and deal with it than to let it fester. If you get too fucked-up too often, you will make yourself and the people who love you totally fucking miserable. Try to avoid that.

Here are some drug-specific pointers to help you find your way.

Marijuana

A.K.A.
:
Pot, potential, grass, weed, Mary Jane, 420, ganja, herb, chronic, coughy ha-ha.

METHOD OF INGESTION
:
Smoked, eaten.

EFFECTS
:
A warm, time-expanding fuzziness that amplifies the hilarity and deliciousness of everything.

SIDE EFFECTS
:
Short-term memory loss (never a good thing for students, since you’re spending a lot of time and money cramming stuff into your brain), bottomless appetite, occasional paranoia.

FOR BEST RESULTS
:
Conduct initial experiments in a safe space free of stress and social obligation. If you find you enjoy pot, restrict usage to weekends, preferably late morning, en route to a pancake house or a matinee. Smoking pot during the week—going to class or doing homework stoned—is a surefire way to flunk your classes. When you’re stoned, easy tasks become difficult, your professor’s lectures will be impossible to follow, reading will be a challenge because you’ll be much more absorbed in the shape of the letters on the page than in what the words are saying, and formulating complete thoughts of your own can be comically daunting.
In conversation, you will constantly forget what you were about to say, which is hilarious if you’re sitting around with a good friend who already knows you’re not an idiot, but is less hilarious if you’re trying not to sound stupid in front of people you don’t know very well. All that said, marijuana is one of those drugs whose downsides are dramatically exaggerated. It can be great for creativity, relaxation, and sex, and in several countries that have not fallen off the map, recreational marijuana use is not a crime. Marijuana also has documented medical benefits. It’s great for chronic stomachaches and people with HIV and cancer, for example.

DO NOT
:
Take a hit of weed if you’re drunk, or you’ll get the spins and vomit.

ROMANTIC TIP
:
“Shotgunning” is when you exhale the smoke from your mouth into someone else’s mouth. This requires your lips to touch theirs, also known as kissing. The shotgunnee does, indeed, also get high (if a little less so). Recycling works!

CEASE USAGE IF
:
You gain more than 20 pounds from munchie-induced gorging or you can’t remember what you’re supposed to remember.

Cocaine

A.K.A.
:
Blow, snow, coke, booger sugar, Mr. White, skiing, the rich man’s life-ruiner.

METHOD OF INGESTION
:
Snorted. (If it’s smoked or injected, it’s called crack.)

EFFECTS
:
Temporary feeling of confidence, extreme loquaciousness, surging energy. Cocaine is a drinker’s drug: When you’re on it, you can drink and drink and not get tired.

SIDE EFFECTS
:
Deviated septum, crippling annoyingness, almost instant desire for more.

BE WARNED
:
Cocaine is cut with all kinds of poisons, including levamisole, a cattle-deworming drug that’s shown up across the US drug supply in the last few years and that can rot your face off and obliterate your immune system. (To learn more about that, see
www.thestranger.com/cocaine
.) Cocaine is also funding the current bloodbath in Mexico, and regular use—whether snorting, smoking, or injecting—tends to harden people’s souls, making them selfish, aggressive, rude, and worse at everything (academics, art, sports, empathy). Science doesn’t have a satisfying answer for why that happens, but you will see it happen over and over again to anyone who takes a liking to cocaine.