Daily Archives: February 23, 2011

Occasionally I drink. I don’t know if I’ve written about this. Occasionally I work too and I’m pretty sure I haven’t written about this, and if I have I haven’t written about it in any great length. Part of my thinly-disguised anonymity you see – “Journalism’s rubbish answer to Banksy,” according to one idiot* – allows me to hold down a relatively well paid, prestigious and, yes, sometimes important job in a very grand building in Mayfair. From this very grand building in Mayfair you’ll occasionally find me writing reports on findings in, predominantly, the field of social psychology.** These reports have – over the last few days in fact – been variously described as “Excellent” and “What the fuck is this shit?”

Anyway today, whilst conducting my banana-sharp research, I came across a pair of boners called Ackoff and Emshoff who, in 1975, identified four types of drinkers, each with different motivations for drinking. These apparent ‘types’ are as follows:

1. The Oceanic Drinker: Tends to drink so as to become more gregarious and extroverted.
2. The Indulgent Drinker: Tends to drink in order to become withdrawn and introverted.
3. The Reparative Drinker: Tends to drink in order to wind down from work and ease into leisure, and also reward themselves for all their efforts.
4. The Social Drinker: Tends to use alcohol as a social lubricant

So, which one are you? More importantly, which one am I? Just kidding: which one are you? I’d love to know because from where I’m sitting – a very grand building in Mayfair – I’m all four, and often all four at the same time. I can’t work out if this is good or bad: it could be that they’ll all eventually cancel each other out like double negatives and I’ll become ‘The Non-drinking Drinker: Tends to not drink’ but somehow I doubt it.

* That idiot being me, about two seconds ago.

** Although this is a rarity. If you were to ever visit this very grand building in Mayfair – and I’d love it if you did – you’re more likely to find me (1) smoking in the toilet, (2) practicing my Daniel Plainview impression in the toilet, or (3) sleeping in the toilet.