Part 2
Who Gets to Drink What? The Myth of “Men’s” and “Women’s” Drinks
Chapter 2
Why Do We Keep Thinking About Someone We Barely Know? The Phone Call They Were Both Waiting For.
Waiting
She
She didn’t get home quickly. She stepped inside, slipped off her coat, kicked off her shoes, switched on the lights, and set the groceries on the kitchen counter, unpacking them almost automatically.
Little by little, the apartment filled with its familiar evening soundtrack: running water from the faucet, the quiet hum of the refrigerator, the occasional notification from her phone lying face-up beside her laptop, and the muted voices of a television playing mostly as background noise.
For a while, she didn’t think about the man from the supermarket at all. That was only natural. Adults usually deal with the practical necessities of life before allowing themselves to think about anything else.
But eventually her thoughts drifted back to the moments that had stayed with her from the evening. Not deliberately. They simply returned on their own.
”I suddenly realized I wasn’t remembering his face. I was remembering the way he spoke. Calm. A little ironic. Never trying too hard to impress me. Strange. I don’t even know his name, and yet this is already the second time tonight I’ve caught myself thinking about him.
What if he was simply being polite? What if he never calls? And even if he does… should I say yes?
I’ve already had relationships that taught me not to let people into my life too quickly. Not because I’ve given up on the idea of love. More because I’ve learned to be careful.
My life is comfortable now. Not perfect, of course. But I’ve grown used to it. By forty, living alone stops feeling like a personal tragedy.It simply becomes a well-organized way of life.
And yet, despite everything I’ve built for myself, somewhere deep inside me there’s still a stubborn hope for something very ordinary. A home. Family dinners. Children’s voices. Plans made years into the future. And the comforting knowledge that, when evening comes, someone is actually waiting for you—not just your next message.
Then, from somewhere deep inside, another thought quietly surfaced.
Did he like me?
And if he did… what would that really change?
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She took a bottle of Tempranillo out of the brown paper bag and held it in her hands for a moment. An ordinary wine. For an ordinary evening. With no special occasion attached to it.
👉 Tempranillo is one of Spain’s best-known red grape varieties. Wines made from it are typically fruit-forward, softly structured, and moderate in tannins, making them an excellent choice for an everyday dinner. It’s the kind of bottle people buy not to impress anyone, but simply to bring a long workday to a pleasant close.
She poured herself a small glass. Then another thought made her smile.
— I bet he was trying to guess what I’d bought. He was looking at that bag a little too carefully.
The idea amused her more than she expected.
— I wonder what conclusions men actually draw about women based on the alcohol they drink.
Wine is still fairly safe territory for a woman. But what if I’d been carrying a premium blue-agave tequila? Or a rich Caribbean rum? Or, for that matter, a good smoky Scotch?”
She remembered ordering a neat rye whiskey in a restaurant a few years earlier. The server had automatically placed the glass in front of the man sitting beside her.
At the time, she had laughed. More than anything else, she had found it amusing.
Now, remembering that small incident years later, she suddenly realized how deeply people still divided drinks—and, by extension, tastes—into “men’s” and “women’s” categories, even if they rarely said so out loud anymore.
She took another sip of wine and picked up her phone. No message. Not yet. Which, she admitted to herself, was probably the right timing. A text that arrived too quickly might seem a little overeager. One that came too late would suggest there had never been much interest in the first place.
She smiled at her own thoughts.
— Maybe I really am getting older. Meeting people used to feel so much easier. Or perhaps that’s just the way I remember it.
That evening they still knew almost nothing about each other. A few miles of nighttime Denver, two separate apartments, and two glasses of wine lay between them. Yet both found their thoughts returning again and again to the same chance encounter
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While dinner was cooking, she wandered almost absentmindedly into her bedroom and opened the closet. Not because she had already decided to go out with him. And certainly not because she was planning to impress anyone. Although, somewhere deep down, she already knew she would almost certainly say yes if he called.
Her eyes moved slowly across the clothes hanging inside.
What does a woman wear on a first date at forty? Ask AI? Google it? Call a friend?
A dress that was too elegant looked as though you were trying too hard.
Something too casual suggested you didn’t care at all.
When she was younger, things had been simpler. Back then, it was enough just to stand out. To be noticed. With age came a different realization.
People are rarely remembered because of what they wear.
They’re remembered because they know when enough is enough. Because they have a sense of proportion
She found herself thinking about how much of a woman’s life is built around the subtle art of making an impression. The methods differ from one woman to another. Some choose boldness. Visibility. A touch of provocation. The desire to become the center of attention the moment they enter a room.
Others choose something quieter. Confidence. Taste. Attention to detail. The kind of femininity that never asks to be noticed…yet somehow makes a man look twice.
She studied her reflection in the mirrored closet door.
— I probably should freshen up my haircut. Maybe touch up the color around my temples.
The thought irritated her. At the same time, it felt perfectly natural. Men her age could grow older almost without apology. Society generally allowed them that privilege.
Women, more often than not, were expected to negotiate with time rather than simply accept it.
She took another sip of wine.
— I wonder… Does he even notice things like that? And if he does… which details catch his eye? And what do they tell him?
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He
He reached home well after dark.
The snow was still falling in scattered bursts, turning the wet streets into blurred reflections of headlights and neon signs. The underground parking garage greeted him with its familiar silence, the smell of damp concrete, and the distant hum of the ventilation system.
He let himself into the apartment, switched on the kitchen lights, set the grocery bag on the counter, and stood still for a few seconds, listening to the silence.
The apartment looked exactly the way the homes of people who have lived alone for years often do. Clean. Comfortable. Well organized. Yet somehow missing the feeling that life was truly unfolding inside. A quality espresso machine. Several bottles of wine on the counter. Books. A laptop. Everything is neatly in its place. A large television is mounted on the wall. An expensive sound system that saw far more use on weekends than on weekdays.
He took off his jacket, placed his phone beside the coffee machine, and began making dinner almost automatically, just as he had done hundreds of times before.
Season the steaks. Let them rest for a few minutes. Bring the pasta water to a boil. Olive oil. A little garlic.
His phone kept lighting up with work notifications, news alerts, and messages. Yet his attention kept drifting somewhere beyond the familiar surroundings of his apartment.
Without realizing it, he found himself thinking about the woman from the checkout line. Her calm voice. Her easy smile. The effortless way she had carried on a conversation without trying to appear more interesting than she really was.
And then there was the brown paper bag with the bottle inside. Oddly enough, that was what his memory kept returning to. Why? Why did he suddenly care so much about guessing what she’d bought?
Wine seemed like the obvious answer. Something quiet and unpretentious. A Pinot Noir. A Tempranillo. Perhaps a Sauvignon Blanc. The sort of bottle chosen by someone who knows how to spend an evening alone without turning solitude into a personal drama.
Then another thought interrupted him.
— Why am I assuming it had to be wine? Why did I automatically decide that a woman like her would buy wine? It could just as easily have been a good Italian amaro. Or Bénédictine, the classic French herbal liqueur. A dark Caribbean rum. Or even a bottle of bourbon. Why not?
That last thought surprised him. Not because women couldn’t enjoy bourbon. Of course they could.
It surprised him because, despite everything, his own generation still carried around an old mental map of who was supposed to drink what.:
• Women drank wine. Champagne. Cocktails.
• Men drank whiskey. Bourbon. Brandy.
Real life had long since outgrown those categories. Yet the categories themselves refused to disappear.
He remembered a colleague from Chicago. She was a petite woman in her mid-thirties who knew more about Islay Scotch than most of the men in the office. She could happily spend half an hour debating the smoky character of Lagavulin versus Ardbeg.
👉 Islay Scotch is a style of Scotch whisky produced on the Scottish island of Islay, famous for its intensely smoky, peaty character and distinctive maritime notes.
Lagavulin is one of Islay’s iconic single malts, celebrated for its deep peat smoke, sea-salt character, and long maturation.
Ardbeg is another legendary Islay distillery, widely regarded as one of the world’s benchmark expressions of heavily peated single malt Scotch.
And yet…The idea of a woman confidently picking up a good bottle of bourbon after work still struck him as just a little unexpected.
He smiled to himself.
— That’s probably how cultural habits work. Even when we believe we’ve outgrown old stereotypes, part of us still carries ideas that belong to someone else’s generation.
Sometimes our choice of bottle changes faster than our image of the person holding it
Sometimes human stereotypes prove stronger than any Scotch whisky. She changes the bottle. He changes his opinion of Her
His phone lit up again with another notification.
He glanced almost absentmindedly at the number he had saved in the supermarket.
Then another thought crossed his mind.
— I really do want to know what was in that bag. And if I found out… why would that matter so much?
By now he was old enough to understand that people are always far more complicated than the bottle they happen to buy on the way home.
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Those thoughts led him to another decision. A steak like this deserved the right wine. He reached for a bottle of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. A classic pairing.
👉 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon is one of America’s signature red wines, known for its rich black-currant fruit, dark berry flavors, oak spice, and full-bodied structure. It has become one of the defining symbols of modern American winemaking.
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After taking the edge off his hunger, he leaned back in his chair.
— What am I supposed to wear if we actually meet?
He walked over to the closet and opened the door. A suit was the first thing he ruled out. Too formal. Too much like a business dinner or an attempt to impress someone with status.
A tie was out of the question.
But an ordinary sweater felt too casual. Eventually he settled on a navy wool pullover and a light-colored shirt with the top button undone. Neat. Comfortable. Well put together without looking as though he were preparing for a corporate presentation.
— I’ll make the final decision the day we meet.
Opening their closets, they thought they were choosing clothes. In reality, each was quietly choosing the version of themselves they wanted to bring to the meeting
Then another question appeared.
— When should I contact her? Should I call? Or would a text be better? A text would spare her from hearing the nervousness in my voice. Not tonight. That would look as though I were rushing things. But waiting too long isn’t a good idea either. The moment fades. The excitement fades. The emotions lose their sharp edges. She might think I wasn’t really interested.
He smiled.
— All right. In a couple of days I’ll send her a message. We’ll see if she replies.
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Chapter 3
The Call
He
— A couple of days have passed. I should probably reach out before that chance meeting disappears beneath work meetings, evening news, and the routines of everyday life. At the same time, two days isn’t so short that my message will seem impatient.
He picked up his phone more than once. Each time, he put it back down without typing a word.
— Or maybe I should just forget about her. Why invite new complications into my life?
Yet every time he tried to dismiss the idea, he found himself remembering their conversation in the supermarket. For some reason, it refused to leave the edge of his thoughts. One of the odd things about adulthood is that even sending a simple text message can begin to feel like a small exercise in diplomacy.
In the end, he texted her on Thursday evening—late enough that the workday was over, but early enough that the evening hadn’t yet slipped into night.
The hardest word in that message wasn’t the first one. It was the last: Send
The message was brief.
“I hope Denver hasn’t managed to invent any new weather disasters over the past couple of days—or any new political ones. How about we find out whether there’s still a place in this city where two people can enjoy dinner without discussing April snowstorms or the November midterms?
She didn’t answer immediately. But she didn’t keep him waiting very long, either.
She said yes.
All that remained was choosing the place and the time. He suggested a small restaurant that wasn’t especially well known, but one he had visited before and genuinely liked.
They settled on a weekday evening, giving both of them enough time to get home after work and change before dinner.
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She
She read the message almost as soon as it arrived. And, somehow, she smiled before she even realized she was smiling. There was nothing pushy about it. No forced cleverness. None of the self-confidence she had learned to recognize—and distrust—within the first few lines of a conversation. At the same time, it wasn’t overly cautious, either.
It struck exactly the right balance.
She didn’t reply immediately. Not because she was playing games. And not because she believed in making someone wait. By this stage of life, people no longer drop everything simply because someone interesting has appeared.
She finished reading one last work email, closed her laptop, took a sip of wine, and only then picked up her phone again.
“If another snowstorm doesn’t bring civilization to a halt, I’d love to. Now we just need to find a place where people aren’t fighting over the last empty table—and where the waiter is polite, attentive, and doesn’t keep us waiting all evening.”
— I wonder where he’ll suggest we go.
For some reason, that suddenly seemed important. You can tell a surprising amount about a person by the restaurant they choose.
• Too expensive sometimes meant someone wanted to impress you with money.
• Too trendy could be an attempt to look younger than they really were.
• A bland chain restaurant suggested a lack of imagination.
• Too aggressively “chef-driven” carried the risk that he’d spend the entire evening explaining the chef’s culinary philosophy and the restaurant’s “innovative” menu.
She suddenly realized she would be judging him through countless other details as well. His car. His watch. His shoes. The phone he carried. The way he spoke. His table manners.
And, of course…Whatever he ordered to drink.
He replied:
”Then let’s keep it simple. Somewhere quiet. No glamour, no trendy lines, no booming music, and definitely no sports-bar fans shouting at giant TV screens.”
She laughed out loud. For the first time in a very long while, she realized she wasn’t feeling anxious about meeting someone new. She was actually looking forward to it.
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To be continued…
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