an intervention...

I don't have anything new and exciting to report on, so I thought I would recount an episode from my past.
My past is a funny thing. It is full of dark areas and unhappiness, but I feel I've said all I want to say about those aspects of my life.
I will make references to the dark parts, but only in passing, and only to set the stage for something else.
For an example, please see the below.
I separated from my ex-wife about 10 years ago. When we broke up, we found all of the friends who had been around us while we were married, disappeared.
Many of these people had been my friends since high school. To be fair, saying that I gave them good reason to be around no more, would be a significant understatement.
Regardless of how or why it happened, I found myself in my early 30s with no friends whatsoever. I was depressed and miserably lonely. I needed people around me. It is no good having the ability to make people laugh by saying stupid stuff, if there is no one around to hear.
Eventually, I found new people to be friends with. These people became the foundation on which I began to build something more like a life than I had been living.
They were great to me, and got me through the hardest times. But, I had no history with them. They didn't know me when I was a skinny dork in the 11th grade. They only knew me as the big, 30 something year old dork. The big dork who didn't drink.
They didn't know I had NEVER drank... Drinked... Been to drinking guy... Whatever.
We hung around in bars a lot. Ri-Ra in Providence more than anywhere else. Lovely Irish pub, with grotesque live music. There was a time when I liked the song, "Brown Eyed Girl". I have had the liking of that song sub-par live band-ed to death.
One night, I show up at this bar, to find all of my friend gathered around, looking at me.
"What's going on?", I ask.
They tell me that as we had all been friends for then 2 years, it was time I trusted them enough to tell them the truth.
"The truth?", I think to myself. "Could they have figured out that I am gay? How could they? I've been so careful... Wait. I'm not gay. What the hell are they talking about?"
I ask them what the hell they are talking about.
They tell me they know I have a drinking problem.
This is very odd, as I never drank.
They tell me that my never drinking is how they know I have a drinking problem.
I try to explain how that logic is faulty by asking if they ever saw me making out with a pig.
My friend Sean says, "Well there was that one girl..."
I say I meant a real, lives on the farm, pig.
"Ah.", he says. "Then, uh, no."
With this additional conversation, I feel my point is lost.
They tell me I need to trust them, that they won't think differently of me. I appreciate this, but it really bugs me anyway, because of the never drank in the first place thing with me.
And that's where the history is so useful. My friends from high school saw me never drink as we grew up. It wasn't even a question.
Realizing that there was no way for these new friend to understand that, I ask them if I had a drink would that prove to them that I don't drink. As stupid as that sounds, it does make sense.
They say they don't think that would be a good idea, imagine the consequences, bleh, bleagh.
I point at a random bottle behind the bar and say, "Gimme a shot of that!"
The bartender looks to my friends for approval before doing so like he was giving me bullets for the gun I was holding.
A somber nod later and I have my shot, which I drink at a gulp before I can really think about it, because I honestly don't like the way alcohol tastes. That's at least 1/2 the reason why I don't drink.
Turns out I pointed at a bottle of Goldschlager, which is actually pretty tasty. It has henceforth become my drink of choice when I have one.
After consuming the drink, my friends stared at me, apparently waiting for some Jekyll and Hyde type action where I launch myself over the bar and begin sucking down all the booze I can reach.
This does not happen. Nothing at all happens, in fact
"Happy?", I ask them.
They watch me for a while. I am convinced they were waiting for days for word of my relapse. As of this writing, they may no longer be waiting, but I am not sure.
What I am sure of is that I am the only person who was ever subjected to an intervention for NOT drinking.