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While out with friends on a Saturday night, life, at approximately drink number three, can take a whimsical turn. Comparable to Cinderella’s accoutrements at midnight, your companions can suddenly transform into radically different entities - from introvert to extrovert, calm to mean, kind to insane. The quiet and retiring one may start leading a conga line, the hermit friend could start collecting acquaintances, and the serious intellect might be found on a table shout-singing Beyoncé.
Surrounded by debauchery and vomit, these are the cool, calm, and collected individuals
Usually we know ourselves and our friends well enough to know where the paths will lead, and, according to scientists, there’s really only four different drunk personalities that we all morph into: Ernest Hemingway, Mary Poppins, Nutty Professor, and Mr Hyde. Just add ethanol - which one do you become?
The Ernest Hemingway
The Ernest Hemingway drunk is the one we’re usually the most jealous of - the ones who never seem inebriated despite the apocalyptic nightmares erupting around them. Surrounded by debauchery and vomit, these are the cool, calm, and collected individuals who seem freakishly unaffected by the effects of alcohol. They are the ones least likely to do anything mad like spend their life savings on an NFT, or send smutty texts to a coworker. The Ernest Hemingway drunks don’t usually start fights with strangers or end up crying in a corner, and are the stable ones who remain relatively lucid throughout without leaping into the heights of euphoria or the depths of despair. Which, while enviable, can also result in its own special type of hijinx as no one is ever truly aware of their intoxication levels.
The Mary Poppins
Happy and friendly, helpful and warm, the Mary Poppins drunk is the benevolent fairy godmother overseeing the manic omnishambles of drunken chaos. She’s the most likely to be giving motivational speeches to women in the bathroom over a shared box of tampons while assisting with lipstick application and reassuring the masses that they are beautiful, and worthy of love. The Mary Poppins drunk is usually agreeable when sober, with alcohol merely amplifying this quality - a sweet and good natured person who remains sweet and good natured while pickling in gin. It is, therefore, unfortunately unlikely that any terrible, malicious, or deeply depraved people you know would drunkenly evolve in this way, although it would be nice if they did.
The Nutty Professor
The Nutty Professor is the introvert-turned-extrovert after a few shots of tequila. The quiet bookworm who emerges as a social butterfly after a few Merlots. The most extreme personality adjustment of the four groups - the Nutty Professors will radically transform, but not in any concerning way. For them, alcohol is a social lubricant that frees them from the restraints of their own social anxieties, allowing them to unleash their inner discourse divas on the unsuspecting public. But, while they may have one of the most distinct personality shifts, they are, thankfully, unlikely to punch a wall, steal a police car, or be arrested for public nudity.
Mr Hyde
Unlike the Nutty Professors, Mr Hydes mutate in far more sinister ways. By far the worst of the bunch - these are the ones whose personalities shift in all the meanest, maddest, and most malevolent manners. They are the ones most likely to start a fight or headbutt a stranger. The friend most likely to disappear for two days and the resurface fresh out of jail for setting someone’s hair on fire or stabbing a bouncer with a fork. We’ve all known a Hyde or two in our time, finding their antics to be light entertainment for a time before fearing that they might actually be capable of killing a squirrel or burning down half of London while intoxicated.
According to the scientists who compiled this evidence and came up with the jazzy names, it’s good to know what type of drunk you, and those around you are, so that you can be more aware when consuming alcohol. Perhaps it will inform your future friend choices - maybe the next time you’re in a pub you might find yourself shopping around for a few more Mary Poppins to add to your life. A Nutty Professor or two to spice things up a bit. You won’t know which ones the Hemingways are, but the Hydes will be easy to spot, screaming into the abyss or swearing at a postbox. They’re probably best off left alone.
