Gender differences Part XI: Drinking styles

Drinking is another area where behavioral differences between the sexes just seems to occur naturally. Men and women aren't taught that they have to drink a certain way, nor is this a subject which feminists harp about as an area of discrimination. It's just that the sexes naturally gravitate towards different drinking styles.

Although several of the previous posts about gender differences, for example the piece on shopping, scoffed at women, females are generally much more civilized drinkers. Men can be just incredibly mindless and even self-destructive when it comes to alcohol.

Men frequently try to outdrink each other. (What exactly is the upside of proving you can imbibe more poison?) I've never heard a woman say, "I can drink you under the table," except in the movies. It happened at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark, proving once again that if Hollywood believes in it, it isn't reality.

I've never seen a woman throw up, and then continue to drink.

When men get drunk, they tend to grow beer muscles, those phantom appendages which make them think they're more studly than they are. I've never seen a woman flex hers.

Women don't walk into bars with the vague intention of getting into a brawl. You never hear, "She's the kind of gal you want on your side in a bar fight."

I've never known of a woman who gets drunk and decides that mailbox baseball is a good idea. Nor that stealing street signs or traffic cones are clever things to do.

If you think of drinking as one big game of Truth or Dare, men will usually take the dare, whereas the truth, after being strained through the sieve of their drunken egos, tends to become a bit fuzzy. Women tend to opt for the truth, or at least their own emotional truth as they perceive it.

Men tend to see drinking as a glorious activity, in keeping with their greater egotism. While they're drunk, their egos can soar, unfettered by the bonds of sober reality. Women see a drink as their friend, someone to comfort them and keep them company and make them feel warm inside.

Both sexes tend to find the other more attractive and likable when they're drunk. "Beer goggles" are generally thought of as male apparel, but women wear them too. 

Men drink because it's a blast to get shit-faced. Women sometimes drink because they feel they need to in order to fit in.

Women tend to like either sweet drinks, or drinks which make them look sophisticated. Women never drink to prove their femininity, whereas men do drink to prove their masculinity. "Manly" drinks include whiskey and a gin and tonic. (A man would have to be awfully confident in his masculinity to order a Brandy Alexander or a Manhattan.)

Public urination is more a male thing. That may have something to do with the mechanics involved, but it probably also is a function of the volume of liquid consumed while drinking beer, which is primarily a male beverage. (The ever present smell of stale urine in certain public places like the New York City subway system is enough to make one want to bring back Prohibition.)

Men tend to be more confident (and therefore more dangerous) drunk drivers.

Once you've been around enough drunks while sober, you begin to develop a real appreciation for inhibitions. Especially male inhibitions. It may be love that makes the world go round, but it's inhibitions that make it work.