...Wherein Eli makes a "shaken, not stirred" joke

Last night I went to the basement bar (if you're just tuning in, that's exactly what it sounds like. There is a bar in the basement of my Kollegium). Folks are pretty generous about buying a tray of drinks and just passing them around to whoever's nearby. It led me to the realization that my sobriety for most of my life had less to do with my own concerns about safe drinking and more to do with the fact that I am very, very cheap. Friends would sometimes invite me to drink, and say "hey, they've got cheap alcohol at [name of place], we can get drunk for only $20 apiece!" My immediate response was always that a $40 board game would provide a lot more fun than two nights of cheap liquor, and that it just wasn't worth the money.

That said, despite the fact that I'm no longer a complete teetotaler, I'm keeping it light; I still have no desire to get so drunk that I pass out, or vomit, or can't find my room (which is about 200 feet away from the bar). So, I'm figuring out where my limits are in a safe way. How do I feel after four drinks? After seven? Do I want to have more, or is this my limit? I still don't like the idea of not being in control of my own body, so it was easy for me to decide to stop at the point when I was getting-tipsy-but-not-yet-wasted. I know for some people the whole point is to fall over, but that's not really me.

DIS warned us not to try to keep up with the Danes, because they would drink us under the table (or put in the passive voice, we would be drunk under the table, which amuses me more for some reason). Danes start drinking a lot in high school, so by the time they're in college, they've got quite the tolerance. This is, of course, a culture like in US frats: he who drinks the most is the manliest, and everyone else is, and I quote, "A pussy." But I've seen that before, and I was ready to take DIS's advice long before they ever gave it. Most Danes have met other American exchange students at one point or another, and expect us to be lightweights. Two weeks ago, a bunch of Americans came down to the bar at 11:30, and they all went to bed at 1:00 because they drank too much. I drank less and drank it slower, but I stayed up until sunrise meeting people and having some good conversations. Therefore, I think I win whatever inane contest we were having.

But of course, that was just three paragraphs of setup for the real story that sticks out in my mind. There were two guys at around 5:00AM who decided that they couldn't have any fun because out of the 10 or so people left in the bar, *I* was not drunk enough. I had already had a conversation with them earlier in the evening about being an American student in Denmark, etc., so they (one of them in particular) pulled out just about every coercive trick he could think of to get me to have a shot. He had clearly had this conversation before, and his happiness was definitely riding on getting me to have another drink; he tried everything, and I was proud of myself for stepping outside my comfort zone while still staying safe.

Paragraphs may be inadequate to understand the breadth of this guy's tactics. I think it calls for a bulleted list, with me assigning a title to each move.

• The "But what about this one" doctrine: The problem was that I hadn't tried that specific kind of shot. I explained that, in fact, I had two of them, and thought they were okay, but that he was missing the point. I was plenty drunk already.
  
• The "I'm not too drunk as long as I can still hang on to the floor!" theory: He explained to me that I was not yet drunk enough because I still had fairly good motor skills. My response was that I enjoy motor skills.
  
• The "Okay, sure, that's a factor, but..." fallacy: He explained that we had the same physical build (true), so we should be able to hold about the same amount of alcohol (false). I just laughed and said "that's not true at all, and you know it," and he moved on.
  
• The "Cultural exchange" guilt trip: He explained that I was not having a proper Danish student experience because I was still on my feet. He went on to say that, as a Dane, he was disappointed and hurt that I wouldn't share a drink with him (my response: nobody else seems to mind, and they're mostly Danish). He also said that he's been in the Kollegium for a few years now and the exchange students often fly under the radar, they stick together, don't come to the bar, and then he and the other folks never get to meet us, and we miss out on meeting them. I promised not to fly under the radar, and we ended up both deciding that there should be a "meet the international students" party sometime in October, which actually sounds like a great opportunity to me.
  
• The "Man up!" approach: He told me that I was *so close* to being a cool American. As previously mentioned, we often go to sleep at around 1:00, and the other American guy in the building had set the current record (a record this guy made up on the spot) by staying up drinking with them until around 3:00. This was an easy one to pick apart, because he was flat-out lying to my face to get me to drink. I told him that 1) I had stayed up until 4:30AM two weeks ago, and 2) that it was now 5:30AM, and I was still up, and had my last drink around 5:00, so I was not about to break the record, but had rather broken that particular record over two hours ago.
• The "It's the weekend!" ideology: Blah blah, it's Friday night, you can get wasted, it's not like you have to do anything tomorrow, etc. etc. This one was sort of true, but not really a good enough reason to drink unhealthily. That's often my logic for staying up all night playing board games, but not over-drinking.

Of all those things, it was the "cultural exchange" issue that bothered me the most. I promised myself before I came that I would be open and try Danish things. So, that actually made me stop and think for a few seconds longer than anything else he said. Yet, there's nothing really uniquely Danish about getting wasted. Sure, they do it a little differently here than in the States... but not significantly. And me having ten fewer drinks than the Danish guy isn't "flying under the radar." Most of the guys there know my name now. I was there for six hours. I'm very much on the radar. It's not like sober people are invisible (as hilarious as that would be).

Besides, if I can't remember what happened the night before, what did I really experience? I've asked people what they did on their study abroad trips, and had a couple people say "eh, got wasted a lot." I'm all about people doing what they want to do, but for me, that seems like a waste of a semester. I'm determined to come home with stories that I'm proud I was part of. For some people, learning to hold your liquor may be a source of pride, but it doesn't feel that way to me. I'm proud of the work I do; none of the guys at the bar are going to the Climate Change Flashmob this Monday. So, I feel like I'm good person, and rather than be annoyed at the guy, I'm just proud of my situational awareness and my ability to stick to my guns. Go me!