Musings on "not utah" part two

      To add to our evening, we gave some guys a ride from the bar to where we all went to dinner. One of them simply asked us, "so you've been living in Utah? are you mormon?" We of course said yes. And then he said, "I don't know anything about mormons, I'm pretty sure I've never even seen one". That was the first time in the united states I had talked to a person who believed they hadn't ever even seen a Mormon. We are definitely a minority religion in the NW, but we're still very well-known and I rarely come across people that don't have any knowledge of the church or any association with a member. I forget that there aren't too many mormons on the east coast, or at least that the church isn't very well known out there. So anyway, the guy proceeded to ask, "So what do mormons believe, like what makes them different from catholics?" (though, from the sound of things, he knew very little about catholics as well) It's been a while since I've had much opportunity to introduce the church to someone who speaks english (did that all the time in Argentina, but not so much in the states). So I simply and informatively gave a quick recap of the basic differences of Latter-day Saints and other well-known religions. Honestly, I probably could have been more spiritual about it... but I just hit the main facts so the guy could feel informed. He was really hooked up on the no drinking alcohol thing. When we said we don't feel it's a healthy or necessary practice, he brought up how medical studies show that drinking a glass of wine daily is healthy for you- this is coming from a guy that just downed about 6 guinness beers throughout the evening, two totally different things. And though I'm sure that there are some benefits from drinking a small glass of wine daily, you can also benefit from drinking tomatoe juice daily. I don't particularly like either, so I feel fine in not partaking.
      I find it interesting how quickly some people become defensive when they find out I choose not to drink. He went on and on about how "drinking is the best thing ever" and "how couldn't you drink?!". Then only when I responded, "well, I drank plenty in high school and realized it wasn't a healthy or productive thing for me to do and I didnt like who I was when I drank, so I chose to stop". Then he immediately was like, "oh yeah... well that makes sense. Lots of people stop drinking for that reason." It made perfect sense to him why I chose to stop drinking when I pointed out I had at one time- but when he thought neither of us had ever drank... he was alcohol's biggest propagandist. It was just an interesting paradigm. It's fine if you choose not to drink because you have had negative experiences with it. But it's unacceptable if you choose not to drink because you don't feel inclined or believe you shouldn't.