Together we drink, solo drinkers are misfits

Who drinks alone apart from psychopaths and misfits? Hoisted up there on a bar stool, backbone bent into a concave, drinking alone because “you enjoy your own company.” It’s the biggest scam of this century, this ‘me time’ fad. I’d understand sitting in a park alone looking at ducks in a pond. Or going to eat in a restaurant alone. But I don’t understand people who drink alone. My brother often drinks alone when he is on leave. I used to think he is troubled only to realise he is in the psychotic ‘me time’ brigade. You can drink milk alone in your kitchen, even in the middle of the night. But booze? Alone? How much do you enjoy your company?

Drinking should be social. You drink to share, laugh, crack stupid jokes, and send drinks over to that hippy girl waiting for the mongoose who keeps girls waiting. You drink together to share ideas. To banter. To josh. To tell someone, ‘your new haircut is killing my mood.’ It’s the camaraderie. I have seen numerous pictures of my ancestors gathered around a big pot of brew, unhygienically sucking it through a straw. Even they knew there was no ‘me time’ over drinks. I have never seen a picture of one of them, alone in a corner of a boma, sucking his brew through a straw. (We call those straws oseke, I love that name oseke.)

I keep drinks at my house but I never drink alone. I might walk in after a very gruesome day and take a shot of whisky then go shower, but I won’t sit and drink alone. It’s the easiest way to invite bad thoughts. You will start wondering if you were adopted or how possible it would be to take off and go far away and start life under an assumed name.