Good day beloved people of Hive. It's a brand new week and we are looking at the prompt which centres around peer pressure. It is one of the common things young adults and youths in general face. A good number of people who live their lives certain way they do is not because that's just who they are, it's mostly because of the influence of their peers.
I think when I started facing this the most was when I left home to the higher institution. At some point I had to watch the number of my friends I had made in my 100 level go down because I just couldn't give in to their kind of lifestyle that they were trying to rob off on me. The downside about this is that it may make you look weird because it's what almost everybody is doing, so it only makes sense that you do it as well.
Where it became a bit of a pressure was during my Industrial Attachment. I decided to get myself engaged in some work so that I could gather some money to pay for the following school session which happened to be my last year in school. I got a job at a hotel as a bartender. As much as I thought it would be simple—just serve your guests drink and nothing else— it wasn't case.
I remember the first evening I resumed work. After me and some of my colleagues retreated for the night, we sat around a table and they offered me beer to drink. Now, not that I have anything against beer or people who consume it, but I just happened to be the type of person who doesn't drink beer. And that's what I told them: I don't drink beer. The next thing they called me was pastor. I thought it would just stop there, but it didn't.
My fellow colleague at the bar was the one in particular who tried everything to convince me into drinking a bottle. Sometimes he would even deny me of somethings I would ask from him, only on the condition of me drinking a bottle of beer. To make it worse, almost every evening we closed from work, he would seat at my front with a bottle of beer in our middle. Sometimes when we eat together, he uses beer as his water to push the food down.
Sometimes he would even make bets that would declare him the loser only if I drank beer. Even if he didn't have the money at hand, he wouldn't mind having the management deduct from his salary. I can be in the midst of six of my colleagues drinking and I am the only one with a soft drink while the rest are with beer in their hands. Like I said, I don't have anything against people who take beer. But the fact that they wanted to make me feel awkward for not taking it just like the rest of them do, and trying to influence my choices is what made me stand my ground.
Till I left that hotel, I didn't take a sip of alcohol. I just feel like some people's decisions should be respected. Why asking why when someone tells you his a vegetarian? Or asking why when someone refuses to go to that club with you. You don't need a reason to respect the person's decision.
Images: AI GENERATED
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