When it comes to some things, I’m fairly generous. With other things though, I can be… let’s just say not quite as generous.
Case in point: My friend is having a party tomorrow. I offered to help by bringing a dessert and an appetizer. No problem. I love cooking (read: showing off “ma skillz”) for people! Her and some of her other friends are taking care of everything else, including more food, more desserts (we like to eat a lot) and the drinks. This is where it gets questionable for me…
My friends and hers all drink beer (and sometimes mixed drinks, depending on the occassion), but I don’t like beer. So what will end up happening is that they will stock up the fridge with beer tomorrow. That’s fine with me. I don’t like forcing people to provide me with drinks when I have particular tastes. So what I was thinking was taking a pack of Smirnoff Twisted or Bacardi or some other malt beverage (yes, its true…my boyfriend and I drink like girls) so we can have something there that we like. Again, no problem with this. My problem is (and what has happened in the past) that I don’t want everyone else to drink these and leave me with nothing but beer, but I don’t know how to tell them this without feeling/sounding like a jerk. I also don’t want to cling to the 6pack like some life preserver…they’ll end up getting warm, and I’ll look like a jerk anyway, lol.
I’d offer to take enough for everyone to have some, but its really not in my budget, so I can’t do that. So what should I do? Any suggestions? Or should I just suck it up and leave it to chance?
April 11, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Hmmm, dificult delimna for sure! What if you brought your 6 pack of Schmirnoff and stowed them in a drawer in the fridge or in the back out of sight? If anyone asked you where you got it you could just explain you don’t drink beer so you brought your own stash. Have fun!! It sounds like a great time!
April 11, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Actually, the biggest piece of advice I have is to learn to like beer. I don’t much like it either, and I used to be in your same situation, but I worked on developing enough of a taste for it that I won’t be completely disappointed if I ever wind up in a place where my only option is to drink beer or bring drinks I like which will disappear into other drinkers’ hands.
April 11, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Mal: I like your suggestion, I might just do that…the only challenge will be finding room in the fridge to “hide” it (I still feel a little weird about that part…but we’ll see)
LMM: LOL! I’ve actually considered doing that before. In fact, a friend and I in college (neither of us drank beer) went on a mission to find a beer that we could get used to. Four years later: it didn’t work, and wasn’t worth forcing ourselves to drink it, hehe. Plus, it saves me calories! If I liked beer there would be a lot more opportunities to drink. This way I only drink on occasion, and I kinda like it that way more.
Thanks for the advice!!
April 11, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Hmm. This is a tough one. I sometimes find that when I want to say something but I don’t want to to come off rude I make a joke about it, saying something like “don’t get jealous that I brough —- and you guys have to drink beer”. Sometimes it works and people laugh then stay away, sometimes it doesn’t and people drink/eat my stuff anyways. It’s worth a shot though.
April 14, 2008 at 11:10 am
It seems kind of frustrating that someone isn’t picking up a six pack of it when they go out for beer! If they know you don’t like beer, and you’re coming, why don’t they stock up on that as well? Could you place a request? If you feel like asking for the non-beer beverage of your choice is taking it too far, a possible solution: If you like the malts I bet you would like Lambics (actually a type of beer–but here is a link to one in particular–raspberry is my favorite) http://www.merchantduvin.com/pages/5_breweries/lindemans_framboise.html
It is actually a “dessert beer”–fruity and carbonated but still a type of beer you could request when they’re going out to stock the fridge–that way you don’t have to feel the need to bring your own and be possessive about it.
April 15, 2008 at 10:58 am
I’m also one of those people that only drink diet coke, so I’m used to that whole thing and always feel like I’m inconveniencing them. Lambics sounds kind of good…I might try that in the future!
(I also just posted an update to how it went with my drinks!)
April 15, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Had that problem in the past – switched to mixing my own: a half of vodka (or malibu or bacardi etc) is within my budget and I know it’s a bad idea if I drink all of it
so I’ve got enough to share.