I don't drink, I don't have any desire to.
Since you said you like analogies:
I don't bungee jump. I don't have any desire to.
But if my friend called me up one Saturday morning and said, "Hey Kombat. Jim and I are going to try that new bungee jumping place out by Springfield, wanna come?" I wouldn't say, "No thanks, I don't bungee jump, it's just not who I am."
It's about having an open mind. Maybe I'll
like bungee jumping. I'm certainly open to trying it, even if I don't lie awake at night with a burning desire to bungee jump.
Like I said before, it just really seems to me that you're trying too hard to cling to this "identity" that you've crafted for yourself. It seems like you think that since you've been "the guy who doesn't drink beer" for so long that if you changed your mind now, people would think you're flip-floppy or non-committal. I think that's a very silly fear.
At 15, I thought "I don't like this. This isn't who I want to be." And I held to that conviction through 16, 17, 18, and went to college. At that point, it was never something I did, so I didn't care. Now, it's 15 years later, and my whole life hasn't had a moment of "I should pick up a six pack" or "Can I see the wine list?" So it's just not a part of who I am, or to put it another way, it's just who I am to not drink.
Again, I think this is just silly. Nobody stays the same person their whole lives. You grow up, you mature. Having different values and interests today than you had when you were 15 is NORMAL. Pointlessly clinging to the same ideologies as when you were in puberty isn't a sign of virtuous commital, it's a sign of an irrational OCD obsessive behaviour.
People CHANGE as they grow up. Their interests change, their priorities change. Why would you try so hard not to change, just because that happens to be your "identity" in your current peer group? Guess what - you'll find a NEW identity! Or even if you don't, who cares?
My feeling is, you only get one kick at this can, so why not try every opportunity that comes along, even if it's not something that had occurred to me before, or not something I've had a "burning desire" to do. What's the worst that could happen? If I like it, then I've enriched my life. If I don't, I just won't do/eat/drink it again. But worrying about what other people will think of me if I'm no longer "the guy who doesn't bungee jump" is the LAST thing on my mind.
I was allergic to sea food when I was younger, and never ate shrimp or squid or lobster or muscles. Now that I am older, I may have grown out of that allergy (medically possible), but I just don't have the desire to go to the doctor and get tested and possibly go to red lobster. It just hasn't been part of my life.
Right. But the allergy wasn't by choice, and you didn't grow up to volunteer on a shrimping boat for fun. So... poor analogy.
An older person didn't grow up with the Internet, so it's easy for your grandparents to write it off, because it wasn't a part of their life.
Right. We call those people carmudgeons. The grandparents who HAVE embraced computers have enjoyed a much richer relationship with their children and grandchildren, thanks to email, Facebook, Facetime/Skype, forums like this one, and much, much more.
Again, it just seems stupid to me. You're openly admitting that it's not because you don't like beer. Indeed, you won't even try it to find out! You're saying you won't drink it, because it's how your friends/family know you. That guy who doesn't drink beer. That just seems like such an incredible waste of potential enjoyment to me, especially as someone who makes it themselves!
My brother is an aviation technician, but his main hobby is as a chocolatier. He makes the most incredible treats out of chocolate and candied sugars. He makes his own candy for Halloween, he gives the family chocolate lollipops at Christmas, and he makes amazingly ornate chocolate filigrees for birthday cakes and cupcakes.
But he doesn't eat chocolate. It's not that he doesn't like it (he doesn't know - he's never tried it), he just doesn't eat it.
OK, that entire story is fake. But see how stupid that sounds?