andrewducker

I'm a sad little bugger without a sex life and pretty much alcohol free to boot, so these questions are no brainers given my current situation. I could pretty much join a covent if it weren't for the fact I'n atheist.

Joint the club - I don't think it's sad though. I find both of those things gives me a significant 'edge'.

Having gone through periods where I had to temporarily increase my mental health pills to levels where sex would be impossible and having recently gone through an extended period where my primary partner's depression killed her libido (and other interested partners were in other countries) I can fully state that both myself and my primary partner can go for extended periods of time without sex and deal with it.

But, shit, cut off access to EZTV and there would be blood.

Except if I had access to unlimited free/cheap alcohol in a public setting, at which point I'd just drink and talk shit with fellow drunk and forget the Internet existed until I sobered up.

(To be fair, in my case, my doctor has said that giving up alcohol would be incredibly bad for my mental and physical health and that if I gave up alcohol he'd have to put me on tons of new meds with side effects that are bad news, so choosing between the Internet and booze isn't simply about liking booze, it's also about the fact that I need some form of depressant in my system at fairly heavy doses at all times to counteract my natural anxiety levels, and alcohol actually has fewer overall side effects that most prescription downs.)

alcohol actually has fewer overall side effects that most prescription downs

Yeah, I used to medicate with alcohol because it was less unpleasant than any other available CNS depressant. So glad you have a doctor who acknowledges that - most don't seem to, so I basically relied on a sensible pharmacist friend for most of my guidance.

Also, should note that in my case at one point my doctor did experiment with me not drinking and using a medication to replace the depressant effect of alcohol.

The result: Priapism plus greatly increased blood pressure. And let me tell you, you do not ever, ever want to deal with priapism.

Also, without alcohol, agrophobia, which is not exactly unpleasant but set my general mental health back quite a bit.

Since you asked today, I'd rather keep my nice glass of wine with my meal than my leisure internet. Last Wednesday it would have been the other way round. Glad I don't have to choose.

I'm fairly sure that if I'd offered a "I am so happy I don't have to choose." option then it would have had _all_ the clicks.

SOMETHING ELSE WHICH I WILL EXPLAIN IN COMMENTS.

If you wish to give up something else then I'm not going to stop you :->

Hm, interesting.

Alcohol. I definitely don't need it all the time, but it's still a big part of enabling socialising. I'd like to think I could transition to never having it, but it would be quite weird to get used to.

Sex. I assume you mean, having sex? Living entirely celibate (eg. without any fantasising) would probably be a biggest wrench, but not having sex with someone else for a month would not be a big deal.

Internet. Wow. I'm heavily addicted, in the sense that a lot of my default socialising is via the internet. Some of that could be replaced: it might be healthier if I read books instead of web more of the time, and made a bigger effort to socialise more often in person rather than relying on staying in touch via blogs.

But it's also really useful. For a few days, I do fine without internet (if people know to ring/text me for logistics), but I'm not sure the number of things that would be a giant hassle or impossible, probably including:

* Updating car license, driving license, etc. I'd have to ring up and get them to send me a form, or go into a post office?
* Setting up a standing order
* Responding to an invitation to a university society dinner
* Looking up the syntax for a particular command in a programming language (seriously, did we really have to cope with books??)
* Looking up the best-practice or most-common-cause-of-error for some particular problem
* Buying books
* Buying lots of other stuff
* Winning arguments about bible translation
* Navigating around unfamiliar cities
* Booking B&Bs
* Looking up real-time weather forecasts
* Looking up plant care advice
* Generating sample bridge hands under specific constraints
* Having a to-do list I can easily access from work and home
* Watching trailers for books and movies

Obviously I don't need to do all of that, lots I could just do without, but it would be very annoying to do so.

In fact, for the rest of my life, I'd probably rank sex #1, internet #2 and alcohol #3. But for a month, I'd rate in the reverse order :)

Yeah, for life it would be sex > internet > alcohol. For a month I rank internet > sex > alcohol.

But then I don't drink much.

I already gave up alcohol nearly two years ago because of allergy issues, so #1 is a non-issue for me. It would have been a big deal until I managed to get all of my health issues more-or-less under control, though, for similar reasons to the ones bart_calendar cites. I count myself incredibly fortunate that the allergies didn't really get bad until a few years after the pain and nausea issues got stabilised.

#2 is more difficult, because sex is an important aspect of my relationships that I'd be reluctant to lose, but trying to find workarounds for all the practical things for which I now rely on the internet would probably leave me so chronically short of spoons that my libido would suffer anyway - it has in the past when I've been stressed.

I could probably live without all of the above. In fact, I've never touched alcohol anyway.

Football Manager though? Now that would be a more difficult question.

I could easily live without alcohol. But having observed people at parties recently, I was wondering how people would choose. Interesting to note that 80% would go without the alcohol.

Mind you, I know a lot of geeks.

As someone who finds the taste of most alcoholic drinks disgusting and is borderline asexual, these are both non-questions for me.

Easy questions for me, as I rarely indulge in alcohol or sex these days... choosing between the internet and kittens would be more of a quandary.

For a month, I could give up sex. For the rest of my life, I'd pick sex over the internet (or even a year). I am so happy I do not have to choose.

I feel better now.

Alcohol seems to be optional for me, so no problems giving it up. Would put sex before the internet. Or after. Definitely not during.

Although if I did have to give up the internet for some reason I'm pretty sure I'd have a lot more sex...

I suspect this is true of many people.

And yet they don't :->

How are you taking into account the people whose sex lives depend on the Internet?

Methinks you are mistaking a poll I knocked up because I was waiting for my code to compile and wanted to see what comments people left for something that's been rigorously composed to produce valid data suitable for analysis and publication.

:->

Without the internet I couldn't work thus pay my rent. Assuming you mean just personal use then sex and drugs all the way!

Depending on current life circumstances etc, for many a month without internet would probably be a month without the internet *or* sex...

Oh dear, I'm a cliche of a wife and mother. Five years ago I might have answered the second question differently.

I am fail. I meant to say I'd rather give up alcohol.

You can edit your poll responses :->

I'd rather give up the internet for a month than give up alcohol. I'd rather give up the internet for a month than give up sex.

But, being honest about it, I would find it harder to spend a month without internet than either.

Dear 1988,
There is something you don't even have yet[1], which in 25 years' time a majority[2] of people would find it harder to give up for a month than to give up sex for a month.
Sincerely,
2013

Dear 1998,
You know the internet? That thing you dial into with a modem so you can look at Geocities, Yahoo Directory, Hotmail and maybe two or three other pages? In 15 years' time a majority[2] of people would find it harder to give it up for a month than to give up sex for a month.
Sincerely,
2013

[1]outside of a few specialist contexts
[2]I know it's a biased sample of geeks on andrewducker's friends list, but with Facebook and smartphone games I expect you'd get over 50% of the general population answering that way too.

(Dear 2013. You know the internet - that thing you have to check manually on an external device? In 15 years' time a majority of people would rather go a week without food than a week without it, and would rather give up a kidney than give up their internet chip. Sincerely, 2028)?

Permission to quote this?

Might have answered sex, except I just had to do that for about two months. Ah, childbirth.

Believe me, I don't live without sex by choice! Living without alcohol on the other hand is no problem. I usually have about one drink a week, so am so low on the "how much you drink register" that I'm probably off the bottom of the scale.

Dommy_nick

Internet or sex? It would be interesting to have the option again.