A barkeeper from a prestigious, world class cocktail bar around the corner told me that it really is more about health/alcohol.
He had a group the other day of 20 young people and 18 of them ordered non-alcoholic drinks. He is desperate about his profession.
Now, how can I be so sure? Because I’ve been starving at some of these events, whereas others can seemingly call a single slice of pizza dinner.
There’s most definitely a health aspect in there too, but I don’t think it paints the whole story.
It's just not related to drug consuming acts and more about sports, poker, board games, etc.
I believe that drug-related communications are flawed and closer to animal level than to actually joyful ones. It's better to have a maturity and social skills to communicate, joke and maintain a conversation with interesting people without stimulators.
I'm not from the US though so it's not about the US social scene which is mainly discussed here.
That's exactly the point. To experience animalistic joy, rather than the socially-conditioned one.
> It's better to have a maturity and social skills
That's a very silly argument because it doesn't take into account the fact that a day has 24 hours and also people have different natural abilities. Imagine telling a kid with Down Syndrome "come on, you can do it, PhD in physics ain't that difficult".
I disagree.
Communication is a skill like everything else. Having a constant workaround just reduces your ability to be good at it. Why would a healthy young adult make his own skills worse?
You can either get short-term gains with long-term worsening of your daily life by being incapable of new connections and genuine communications or cut the short-term low-level improvements, suffer for a year or two, learn a bit and have a better life for years to come.
It's like going to gym or do other sports. It's often hard and unpleasant at the start, but the more you're doing it, the fitter you are and the more benefits you bring to yourself in the long-term.
It's really difficult to square the circle that being sober improves your communication skills long-term yet somehow young people have worse communication skills and less friends that previous generations of alcohlics.
I have a feeling that many young people sit behind the screen all the time.
My point doesn't work if you don't even try to socialize. Still have to make an effort and go through the uncomfortable awkward stage when you are shy or lost for words in most interactions.
I know enough no-drinkers who are just fine even with drinking people, that's the matter of empathy and being able to relax and being open without stimulators which is something not a given to people without a practice.
Yeah exactly. Alcohol makes it easier to start and then continue.
In the 90s, MDMA got senators’ panties in a twist. Now, there are multiple 100k+ MDMA-focused events in the western USA annually.