August 6, 2018

Drinking alone, part 2.

1. Earlier today, I had "Deval Patrick, drinking alone" ("... I was actually quite drunk, by myself”). In the comments, The Godfather said, "Drinking alone is bad enough. Admitting to a reporter that you do so is weird." I said:
I don't see anything wrong with eating alone in a restaurant and ordering a drink (or even 2 or 3) with your dinner. But getting "quite drunk" alone (especially in public) is embarrassing.
2. Everyone seems to be talking about "Embracing päntsdrunk, the Finnish way of drinking alone in your underwear" (NBC):
To Americans, drinking alone can sound, well, lonely (and, as we’ll get to shortly, problematic), but Finns typically don’t tend to see it that way, in part because they’re quite comfortable with solitude.

"Finns, like most Scandinavian cultures, are very good at being by themselves," says Briana Volk, the half-Finnish co-owner of the Portland Hunt + Alpine Club, a Scandinavian-influenced cocktail bar in Maine.... "Finns are fairly introverted and private,” she tells NBC News BETTER. “We generally don't say hello to one another on the street or on the bus and we're used to enduring long, tough winters — sometimes in total darkness. For these reasons, enjoying a drink or two by yourself is a natural thing."
3. "This week, a podcast hit me with its ridiculousness, and I made a video. Here encounter rats, crowds, brain loss, gin, and a soft spot for the fate of the introvert":

28 comments:

Henry said...

We are all Scandinavians now.

rhhardin said...

Saint Urho's day is big the day before Saint Patrick's Day. Start drinking early.

St. Urho drove away grasshoppers from Finland using the incantation "Heinäsirkka, heinäsirkka, mene täältä hiiteen!" "Grasshopper, grasshopper, go from hence to Hell!", thus saving the Finnish grape crops.

rcocean said...

Plenty of people have a beer or a glass of wine and read a book or watch TV.

My Dad used to go into his Den and read the WSJ/US News & World Report and have a whisky and soda. It was his "downtime" after work.

rcocean said...

I think I read the Europe's biggest drinkers are the Czechs and Hungarians. Not the Finns.

rhhardin said...

I'm worried about all the Hollywood couples on the lam from the law who went to Venezuela to start life anew. Are they starving now? e.g. The Next Three Days (2010), Kill Me Later (2001).

It's like opening scenes with the World Trade Center standing.

Plot overcome by history.

MikeD said...

I confine my drinking to Dean Martin's philosophy; "I only drink on two occasions, with somebody or alone". I've also always tried to emulate his humblebrag; "I spill more than most people drink".

Darrell said...

"Mueller, Mueller , mene täältä hiiteen!"

Etienne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bill, Republic of Texas said...

I had an uncle who would drink by himself in his wife beater shirt and boxer shorts.

No one really cared when he died.

Confused said...

I'm drinking alone right now. At home. But for some reason I have clothes on so I'm obviously not getting the full experience.

Drinking at home is superior for all kinds of reasons:

Don't have to drive or pay for a ride

Don't have to deal with other people who are also drinking

Don't have to overpay for drinks

Get to listen to the music I want to listen to

Get to read the Althouse blog

I could probably think of more good reasons but I'm drinking at home so cut me some slack.

wwww said...



Quite Drunk means different things to different people.

Is 2-3 glasses of wine quite drunk? Some say yes. Others say a little tipsy. Kind of depends on how you see alcohol.


Not Sure said...

It’s too expensive to go out without predrinking. Just be sure to put on pants before leaving home

walter said...

George Thoroughgood covered this..thoroughly..

Jon Ericson said...

Explains Crack today

exhelodrvr1 said...

Patrick he is hoping to get "cool" (or whatever they call it now) points with the younger voters, and will not be criticized at all by the media for this. Trump never drinks alcohol, but gets hit for having too many Cokes.

tim in vermont said...

Drinking shuts down the parts of the brain in the reverse order of what they evolved. So your thinking brain goes first, the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for planning and worries about consequences, does logic and math, etc. Leaving you alone with the cerebellum, much longer evolved animal brain. So the idea of sitting along drunk and thinking about stuff is poetically appealing, but kind of absurd.

James K said...

Like a commenter on the other thread, when I travel for work I often eat alone and a have a glass of wine or two. But I almost always go to a restaurant where I can sit at a bar, and can potentially strike up a conversation. Of course nowadays a lot of people by themselves are texting or otherwise occupied with their phones. But most are still open to conversation.

Hagar said...

Finns are not Scandinavians. They are related to the Magyars of Hungary.

Scandinavia refers to the Scandinavian Peninsula, i.e, Sweden and Norway. Denmark and the Danes get included because the Danes are of the same people/language group, and anyway, most of what is today southern Sweden and all the islands in the Baltic used to be Danish territory.

MayBee said...

The picture on this post is creeping me out.

James K said...

“Denmark and the Danes get included because the Danes are of the same people/language group, and anyway, most of what is today southern Sweden and all the islands in the Baltic used to be Danish territory.”

Don’t forget Iceland. And Greenland, for that matter (Danish, I believe).

robother said...

I can feel the social drinking making me smarter. And then my wife demands we go home, just when I'm on the brink of some genius breakthrough. What losses to human advancement that woman has cost the race. Sad!

Yancey Ward said...

One thought that occurred to me yesterday while reading that bit about Patrick is that there might be a video of him in that restaurant that night, and he was trying to get out in front of it.

rehajm said...

One thought that occurred to me yesterday while reading that bit about Patrick...

One thought that occurred to me: while the article implies this behavior is the result of leading the chaos and aftermath of catching the bombers it's entirely possible Patrick does this on a habitual basis.

Ann Althouse said...

"Quite Drunk means different things to different people. Is 2-3 glasses of wine quite drunk? Some say yes. Others say a little tipsy. Kind of depends on how you see alcohol."

I'm the one that suggested that 2-3 glasses of wine with dinner was fine (though 2 would be my limit unless a lot of time passed). But I didn't mean to equate that with drunkeness. I don't know how much Deval Patrick drank that made him use that term. I think he's not a large man, so maybe he could feel what he'd call "quite drunk" on 3 glasses of wine, but I assume he drank more than that.

Ann Althouse said...

But I also assume he didn't have a drinking problem or he wouldn't have been open about calling himself drunk!

Bad Lieutenant said...


Ann Althouse said...
But I also assume he didn't have a drinking problem or he wouldn't have been open about calling himself drunk!

8/7/18, 4:04 PM


You'd think pedos wouldn't openly drape themselves in pedo references!

Trashcan O Man said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Trashcan O Man said...

"Hey, where did those big stairs come from anyway?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-EKGdwOsOo