I am an Indian in UK. Culture of heavy drinking and partying even in age group well past 30 is a real hindrance for me. If you don't drink or want to stop at a few, you are not really a sport.
Many Indian face similar predicament.
Many Indian face similar predicament.
I think he now more or less secretly switches to juice after first couple of glasses (and I guess counts minutes till the end).
There is the expectation that you drink too unless you are visibly muslim.
And with some people, there is the feeling that if you aren't drinking with them then they can't trust you fully.
In my first two years here i ran into all of that.
Then i said fuck it and just started telling people honestly why i wasn't going out drinking with them 'i really don't like to drink much, it makes me really sleepy and not much fun. I don't like being around drunk people when i'm sober, and besides all that i'm not spending £120 for a hotel so i have to drive.'
After repeating that a few times most people understood. Some never did.
Those people who never did understand or accept it, i don't work with them any longer.
> "All English are dunks so I'm forced to avoid them."
That's not what drieddust said at all. His (her) problem isn't with the English being drunk or not - it's with the English expecting him (her) to drink if he wanted to be part of their in-group. Which is a reasonable complaint.
There are a large number of teatotallers in the UK. There are large numbers of people who don't like to drink much and don't drink often in the UK. There are people who like to drink often to excess. Rain is wet, sugar is sweet...
It is difficult to find a group of friends when in a new country. I've heard expats claim Indians don't accept white people and scoffed similarly. I'm sorry if you haven't (yet) found a social group you like. Blaming the inhabitants of a country because of their culture, attitudes and practices for that is not something I have to treat with respect - whoever does it.
Nowhere does the poster imply that it's a bad thing or tend to dismiss English people as lesser mortals. It's just a matter of fact comment and is a barrier for him to socialize.
I've made very cruel fun of some British people in Hong Kong sprouting similar nonsense in defence of having no friends outside the expat community. They were actually better people than that and deserved to feel ashamed about it and to their credit they did. People from ones own culture will always be an easier social fit when overseas, even if you wouldn't have much in common with them at home. Overseas you have home and the fact you're finding out about the foreign culture in common - but it's pretty superficial and lazy to fall back on that as a basis for your friends exclusively. Moreover you will miss rather a lot of the benefits of being overseas in a foreign culture.
My experience of Brits is that they are not all such hopeless alcoholics so as to be utterly incapable of socialising without excessive alcohol. If your experience is different maybe you should ask yourself why that is. Maybe you're expecting someone else to do all the work of socialising for you as one suggestion? You may come up with others.