It’s easy to get the impression that Lent isn’t taken seriously any more, but most people I know gave up something. It used to be meat, but now it’s wheat and, running close behind, dairy. This pattern is making entertaining tricky and something as simple as meeting for a casual pizza can descend into a nightmare of negotiations.People are forever giving up the drink, while the very fashionable claim to have given up television. In the vast expanse between America’s east and west coasts, giving up sex is a political movement. So the object of aversion varies, but there’s no escaping the fact that abstinence is in.
We often assume that our identities are defined by our occupation. I’m certainly guilty on that score. Within 10 seconds of meeting a stranger, I’m likely to ask them what they do. Once we get the answer, we think we know something integral about their personalities. I may have to revise that theory.
Jamie L Mullaney’s book Everyone Is NOT Doing It: Abstinence and Personal Identity theorises that what we don’t do says a lot more about who we are. More often, what we don’t do leads other people to judge us in a very personal way. Giving up things can make other people feel very uncomfortable. Other people being me, of course.
The ecclesiastical theory behind fasting during Lent was to demonstrate that rational creatures are bound to labour intelligently for the subjugation of concupiscence — in other words, to suppress sexual desire. By practising self-discipline, we show that we can rise above natural law. Those who fail are no better than animals and will be judged accordingly.
Of course, in more recent times plenty are hopping on the Lenten bandwagon hoping to lose a few pounds in time for the holiday season. But the Pharisees remain in our midst, doing without to demonstrate nothing more than their own piety.
No wonder those who keep to strict diets or don’t know what’s happening in Eastenders annoy us. They may claim it’s for their health or that they prefer to read. But in all cases, whether articulated or not, we have a sneaking suspicion that the abstainer considers themselves morally superior to the indulger. It also brings on an attack of the guilts. Should we be abstaining too? Is it better? Are they better? Better than us? It’s so irritating.
At a recent dinner party attended by my middle-class, art-buying, technology-savvy, autobiography-reading friends, I was seated beside a vegetarian non-drinker. It’s the kind of pressure you can do without. Tucking into my chicken lasagne and knocking back the Pouilly Fumé, his glass of water and barren plate of chickpeas was wrecking my buzz.
The non-meat thing I can handle. I’m from the country, but have spent long enough in the city to repress any gauche inquiry about vegetarianism. But the drink thing got to me. If everyone else at the table is going to get nicely sozzled, I can relax. But if someone is going to stay sober and not laugh at my jokes, it can be a bit tiring. Especially since my line of wit will only achieve the desired response if the audience has been given enough chemical encouragement.
Abstaining is not just a matter of avoidance. It’s a function of time, location and, crucially, your long-term intentions. Take location, for example. Being off meat in India would hardly be an issue. In the heart of Co Meath it’s definitely an oddity, and practically disloyal.
Being off sex when you are 10 is hardly to be commented upon (well, we hope). But a reasonable-looking, single twenty-something who declared themselves celibate would give rise to a lot of talk. And where’s the credit in not buying fur if you are broke? Mullaney has identified four types of abstainers. Quitters used to, but don’t any more. Waiters are virgins; they will, but not yet. Never-have-never-wills, well, they’re the scaredy-cats. Time-outers did and will again, but just not now.
Armed with this information it was no longer enough to know that my dinner companion wasn’t drinking. I had to know why. Were his parents alcoholics? Was he in “recovery” himself? Had he converted to Islam? Maybe he was detoxing? I secretly hoped he had an enormous stomach ulcer and was under medical instruction.
Following my interview I decided he fell into the worst camp. He didn’t drink because he didn’t like being drunk. His was a self-discipline internally motivated by a desire to remain in control of himself.
My urge to refill my glass was motivated by a desire to stop controlling myself. It was slightly depressing. I was off the drink once myself, a time-outer for health reasons. So I know how boring being sober in a room full of drunk people is.
We had an interesting chat, but I still felt guilty for asking him to justify himself, something he was probably required to do on a tediously regular basis. He was a low-key abstainer and it was only my rude questioning that forced him to talk.
Other abstainers can lack that grace and their manner of abstaining has the power to intensify the discomfort of the indulgent. How they refuse the offered drink, cake, cigarette, coffee, or invitation to bed reveals much about themselves.If they do it with a simple “no thanks” then that’s fine by me. So too is “no thanks, I’m dieting”. But what about “no thanks, do you really want to give me cancer?” Or “no thanks, I don’t have sex on the first date and I wouldn’t sleep with you now anyway because you obviously have no morals”.
His was a mannerly abstention that others may not even have noticed. I never drink coffee, but always hasten to assure my hosts that I am not “off” it, I just never developed a taste for it in the first place. It’s the last vestige of my peasant tea-drinking roots. A matter of some regret, but I don’t want anyone thinking I am virtuously avoiding the stuff.
So why has being “off” stuff become so popular? Mullaney suggests that we live in a culture where we are being constantly asked to say yes. In a rich western democracy there is very little that we can’t get, legal or illegal. There isn’t much we can’t afford, can’t eat, or can’t wear. The bits of religion that prohibit certain practices or substances are simply ignored.
Everyone is doing everything. So in a world where we constantly say yes, saying no can be one of the few ways we can carve out an identity for ourselves. We can use what we don’t do to say who we are. Not eating certain foods says we care about animals or we care about our health or how we look. Not driving a car says we care about the environment.
No is a form of social protest or moral crusade. Not drinking or taking drugs says we are taking responsibility for what we say and do. It’s a high-control, low-cost way of defining ourselves. And in a yes-obsessed world, saying no is sometimes the only way to stand out.
