much of your experience with this depends on who you are and how society perceives you. I do not drink alcohol, but I am also a 6ft tall competitive weightlifter. People usually don't question my "no, thank you". And while I have had the annoying person persist and try to get me to drink, they're usually gone after I've reached my 2nd stage of "did you not hear me say no?". I suspect the experience of a less tall and muscular woman might be quite different when it comes to people trying to undermine her choices.
society has a lot of "defaults" that we're suppose to accept. drinking is one. cars is another. eating meat is often one. Some people see it as an attack on their identity when you reject choices made by their society.
> Some people see it as an attack on their identity when you reject choices made by their society.
Spot on. When I was a freshman in college, my then-girlfriend and I decided to become vegetarian. My parents responded with some puzzlement but were ultimately supportive. She, on the other hand, spent the evening crying with her parents, who saw it as a rejection of their lifestyle. I remember her father asking me with a mix of anger and frustration “but what do you EAT?!” and I pointed out that all the things on the plate that were not meat were, in fact, edible. In retrospect, this was the wrong approach (I was reflexively sarcastic in my youth), and I would now approach the question with a bit more compassion. But the experience helped me see why small things (eg, do you drink or not, do you own a gun or not, do you exercise or not, etc) can foment deep divisions among people.
society has a lot of "defaults" that we're suppose to accept. drinking is one. cars is another. eating meat is often one. Some people see it as an attack on their identity when you reject choices made by their society.