It's been over a year since I graduated from college, but only recently have I felt like I'm officially entering the "adult world." Navigating the social arenas of the adult world requires the same basic skillsets as the college world, but a lot of the rules are different and I'm struggling to learn them. Among them is how to drink socially.

As a general rule, I don't drink. I don't like the taste of alcohol. I don't like paying the exorbinant prices that alcohol costs. I don't like the feeling of my brain slowing down and making it harder to string sentences together. I don't mind the physical disorientation - that part's pretty fun. But that part also seems to be slightly frowned upon in an "adult" setting. I'm not opposed to it for any particular moral reasons.

When I do drink, I prefer to get it over with as fast as possible, whether I'm officially drinking a "shot" or not. In college that at least had a sort of "daring" quality that was respected. But it's pretty obviously taboo at classy cocktail parties and even somewhat taboo at "casual adult" parties.

So there's a few separate questions I have:

1) Are there any good, cached buzzword phrases I can use that'll make it socially acceptable to not drink? "I just don't like it" seems to draw disdainful stares, and while I haven't tried it I get the sense that saying I'm morally opposed to it would make me look even more like a stick in the mud. Saying "it's ridiculously expensive" makes me look like a cheapskate. 

2) If I must drink socially, is there a breakdown of the general social conventions I should be aware of so I don't need to have them pointed out to me over the course of the next few years?

3) Is there any particularly interesting analysis of *why* drinking is so important to social interaction? Knowing the underlying causes might at least give me some better appreciation for why I have to learn this other than "because!"