The Sober/Curious movement?

[soccerdad72]

A coffee shop is where you go to get greasy food and a 50 cent cup of joe.
What you're thinking of is Starbucks, where you go to get non alcoholic drinks with something resembling coffee in them amongst all the chocolate and foamed cream, and pay $5 for it.

Good point - sorry, my Gen X is showing

I was actually going to say Starbucks, except I know that they serve (a little bit of) food.

 

[BrianL]

But if the goal is to not drink and be with others not drinking then you wouldn't be the only one in there.
Not all bars are filled with rowdy barely 21 year olds. The last bar I went to had maybe 5 people under 30, and they were at a table eating.

Well, the difficulty is in finding the others who don't want to drink. That's why an environment where alcohol is not served is of interest to some.

 

[Imzadi]

I know many more late 20s-30s who aren't interested in drinking or at least to excess or have to by virtue of the environment. But to me that's not a generational thing nor would I make it out to be.

I attended a 60s costume party a few weeks ago. The hostess had some 60s props laying around, like a corded rotary phone & an ugly, bright orange ashtray filled with un-smoked cigarettes. I noticed some late 20s-30s-somethings would grab the cigarettes and pose with them, Bette Davis-style, for selfies.

I thought that was odd. I mentioned it to a friend, couldn't they just pick up a friend's cigarette at any time and do that? Why was it such a novelty to pose with the cigarettes? She said a lot less people that age range are smoking. Probably due to the ever-increasing cigarette taxes & laws in buildings making it hard to smoke indoors. If business owners want to add alcohol-free places too, that's a good thing.

Yeah, but going to a bar where most others are drinking and you are not is about the most boring thing on the planet.

Yes, I think it's about finding one's own tribe of non-drinkers. Not about that one can decide to not drink amoung drinkers. That's missing the point of the get togethers. Basically, when one goes to a party with drinkers, there is a clock on them. They are fun, gregarious and maybe more uninhibited & chatty at first, when they start drinking. But, if they drink to excess, they start slurring or forgetting words or their train of thought, and basically conversations go downhill with them. If the point of going out is to socialize, there is a limited "optimal" time to chat with people before they've drunk a bit too much. There have been times where I've been having some great conversations with people, then the point comes where I know, "Oh, I can't have this conversation anymore with this person," as they are a bit too sloshed. We can still have fun, but it has to move in a different direction.

 

[soccerdad72]

Basically, when one goes to a party with drinkers, there is a clock on them. They are fun, gregarious and maybe more uninhibited & chatty at first, when they start drinking. But, if they drink to excess, they start slurring or forgetting words or their train of thought, and basically conversations go downhill with them. If the point of going out is to socialize, there is a limited "optimal" time to chat with people before they've drunk a bit too much. There have been times where I've been having some great conversations with people, then the point comes where I know, "Oh, I can't have this conversation anymore with this person," as they are a bit too sloshed. We can still have fun, but it has to move in a different direction.

 

[NotUrsula]

Perhaps the "sober bars" are really designed to be meet-markets for the affluent and fashionable? (Yeah, sorry, my 80s dating history is showing.) The idea being that you go there specifically to meet people who don't drink (or who don't drink much) ... and who perhaps are also fairly likely to not be cheapskates? (Of course, the downside, and probably the reasoning behind the "sober/curious" marketing, is that a place that specifically bills itself as a meeting venue for non-drinkers is fairly likely to attract recovering alcoholics, who tend to be fairly risky dating prospects.)

Funnily enough, I've always been picky about my alcohol, and so has DH; our strategy of saving money by not buying drinks by the glass probably was so effective because the drinks that we were buying back then were fairly expensive ones. The bottles of alcohol in my house are all top-shelf brands, where the difference in price between purchasing a bottle for home consumption and purchasing it in drinks in bars or restaurants really stands out. I don't think the impact is so obvious when you're buying Bud Light. (Example: A bottle of Redbreast 12 sells for between $35-60 in my area depending on where you buy it. If you can find it sold in a bar, a shot will often cost about $20. For this kind of sipping whiskey, you can indulge in it for months at home on what getting tipsy on it once will cost you in a bar.) As DH likes to say, "If I'm going to limit myself to one beer a month, it's going to be a good one."

I'm frugal, but I'm not cheap -- I value quality, and I'm willing to pay for those factors that matter to me. I do weigh purchases carefully. However, the one thing that I categorically refuse to pay a premium for is cachet. I won't pay extra JUST for a name if I don't perceive an actual quality advantage to go with it, and one that costs what the advantage is actually worth. (Paying 200% more for something that is, say, 20% better is not worth it for me.)

PS: Imzadi makes a good point below, about socializing in Starbucks. Conventional wisdom says that we socialize so much more easily in bars because alcohol loosens our inhibitions; being tipsy makes most people just that little bit more likely to give it a try to talk to a stranger and risk rejection. I wonder how a "sober bar" compensates for that?

 

[Imzadi]

What you're thinking of is Starbucks, where you go to get non alcoholic drinks with something resembling coffee in them amongst all the chocolate and foamed cream, and pay $5 for it.

I don't know about you, but I've been in many Starbucks. Maybe it's a regional thing, but most people don't go up to strangers here in Starbucks and socialize the way they do at bars. Most of the people here in Starbucks, either are camped out on a table and have their laptop with them and are writing their version of. "War & Peace," or their thesis paper. And most of the others have their heads buried into their smartphones, using Starbucks' free wifi.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

All I can think of when I see this thread is bi-curious....

I mean, that's where it comes from. "Sober curious". People who are curious about being sober.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Basically, when one goes to a party with drinkers, there is a clock on them. They are fun, gregarious and maybe more uninhibited & chatty at first, when they start drinking. But, if they drink to excess, they start slurring or forgetting words or their train of thought, and basically conversations go downhill with them. If the point of going out is to socialize, there is a limited "optimal" time to chat with people before they've drunk a bit too much. There have been times where I've been having some great conversations with people, then the point comes where I know, "Oh, I can't have this conversation anymore with this person," as they are a bit too sloshed.

I get what you're saying however there are different types of drinkers.

I don't avoid hanging out with drinkers period because they don't all fall into that category you're describing. But I do know ones to avoid or ones where we'll leave earlier on in the evening because I'm just not into that type of thing anymore and haven't been for years. It's not the alcohol it's the people's behaviors in those cases.

 

[amberpi]

Anything that keeps even one person sober, makes me happy.

 

[tarheelmjfan]

A coffee shop is where you go to get greasy food and a 50 cent cup of joe.
What you're thinking of is Starbucks, where you go to get non alcoholic drinks with something resembling coffee in them amongst all the chocolate and foamed cream, and pay $5 for it.

That's a diner. I think most people think of a coffee shop as sort of a non-chain locally owned Starbucks type place.

 

[Imzadi]

Well, the difficulty is in finding the others who don't want to drink. That's why an environment where alcohol is not served is of interest to some.

Exactly. I mentioned up-thread that I was at a party & the hostess asked me what I was drinking. When she found out it was non-alcoholic, she nearly had a cow. Then she when she introduced me to others, she just had to point out how I wasn't drinking. Then I got all the questions by the drinkers as to WHY wasn't I drinking???

I generally don't advertise I don't drink. I usually get a club soda now, (as I've cut out sugar & caffeine,) with a lime in it. If one isn't included, I'll grab a stirrer. It looks like a gin & tonic. And people assume it is, so I don;t go through what I did above. (This was the same drink I had at the party above.)

When I used to drink juice/sugar, I would order a cranberry juice with orange juice and pineapple juice and a splash of club soda. I'll have the bartender put it in the same glass they use for tequila sunrises. It looks exactly like a tequila sunrise, as the juices all stay separate when first added.

If I'm at a regular bar, how are we non-drinkers going to find each other? Some bars put non-alcoholic drinks in different glasses than the alcoholic drinks. Most don't. And I want to have more in common with people than just that we are not drinking.

 

[TipsyTraveler]

I thought of this thread today while playing with my son at the beach. A little girl of about 7 came over wanting to join us, and the introductions went like this:

Her: Can I play with you?

Me: Sure. What’s your name?

Her: Sierra. My mommy really likes wine.

 

[soccerdad72]

They dont look like boomers!!!

Regardless of what type of drink they have in their hands - that picture looks like a boring as hell place. Seriously, if I'm going out to some place, it needs to either have really good food or drink or some other sort of entertainment. The places that seem to be doing well lately (again, regardless of alcohol), combine some other sort of activity - around here, there's been axe throwing, bocce courts and board games as things to draw people in. And yeah, they're fads, but hey, it's at least something new.

 

[NotUrsula]

Regardless of what type of drink they have in their hands - that picture looks like a boring as hell place. Seriously, if I'm going out to some place, it needs to either have really good food or drink or some other sort of entertainment. The places that seem to be doing well lately (again, regardless of alcohol), combine some other sort of activity - around here, there's been axe throwing, bocce courts and board games as things to draw people in. And yeah, they're fads, but hey, it's at least something new.

Axe-throwing? The mind boggles. Give a man a few drinks, then hand him an actual ax and invite him to throw it in a crowded bar full of other people who've been drinking? What could go wrong?

 

[soccerdad72]

Axe-throwing? The mind boggles. Give a man a few drinks, then hand him an actual ax and invite him to throw it in a crowded bar? What could go wrong?

It's not a crowded bar - everything else is accurate, however There are booths (for lack of a better word) that you throw in, kind of like a shooting range type of set up. The place by us is actually BYOB, so it's not technically a 'bar', per se.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Axe-throwing? The mind boggles. Give a man a few drinks, then hand him an actual ax and invite him to throw it in a crowded bar full of other people who've been drinking? What could go wrong?

There's multiple of those places around my area and they serve alcohol (not a BYOB situation but actual beer menus and whatnot).

Trained axe-throwing specialists on hand or not I've been a bit weary about going there not even just because alcohol but lordy just thinking about the casual person who is going to be picking up that axe .

Who knows I guess I could try it out someday lol.

 

[jhoannam]

I'm too busy training for runs to drink

 

[disneychrista]

Nothing wrong with drunk people throwing axe's around...nothing could go wrong with that.

I've seem what drunk people can do with DARTS...not sure I want to be around to see what they might do with an axe.

 

[Imzadi]

I get what you're saying however there are different types of drinkers.

I don't avoid hanging out with drinkers period because they don't all fall into that category you're describing. But I do know ones to avoid or ones where we'll leave earlier on in the evening because I'm just not into that type of thing anymore and haven't been for years. It's not the alcohol it's the people's behaviors in those cases.

I'm not talking about the obnoxious drinkers. Those people are obnoxious even without drinking.

There is a group of us that attend various workshops or seminars together. Then we all go out to dinner or a tapas bar afterwards to chat. We often have great talks, witty, intellectual debates, (no degenerating into name calling or anything close to that,) sometimes about what the seminar was about, etc.

There was this one time, where the debate got really heated, and this one woman, who, by the way she dressed and held herself, was probably a really strong, intelligent supervisor, (but not at all arrogant,) at some corporation. She had a sense of, when she talked, she had something good to say and people listened. She was about to tell us her argument. We were all quietly waiting, on bated breath, as though she was about to tell us she had come up with the cure for AIDS. Just when it was about to come out of her mouth, her eyes went woozy and she put her hands up to her head as though she felt the room start spinning, and she said, "Damn. . . Sorry. I've had too much to drink. . . I just lost my thought. . . Nope. . . I can't get the thought back." And in an instant, <poof!> there went the cure for AIDS as she had tipped over into the sloshed zone. We all groaned.

I'm not flaming her. She had every right to relax and kick back a few - or several, after work.

Yet, as a non-alcohol person hanging out with social drinkers, this happens a lot. It's not always deep conversations about splitting the atom. It could be fluff stuff, like are the even numbered Star Trek movies really that much better than the odd numbered ones? (YES, they are, BTW. ) One moment we are having a lucid conversation, then comes a moment when we are not.

 

[RedAngie]

A coffee shop is where you go to get greasy food and a 50 cent cup of joe.
What you're thinking of is Starbucks, where you go to get non alcoholic drinks with something resembling coffee in them amongst all the chocolate and foamed cream, and pay $5 for it.

Just what I was thinking. Doesn't Starbucks already fulfill the purpose of serving overpriced non-alcoholic drinks?