A toast to your good drinking

RoveDaily’s etiquette expert, Terri Psiakis, charges her glass and looks like she means it.

Dear Terri,

A few of my mates and I were having a discussion and one of them said that it’s proper etiquette to always look someone in the eye when you do a “cheers” with them. Is this true or was he making this up?

Tom, Gladstone QLD Dear Tom,

This is quite possibly one of the deepest etiquette questions of all time. A “cheers” is a very sacred thing. When you “cheers someone”, you’re drinking to their health. If you don’t make full eye contact with them they might think you’re being rude. Unless of course you’re cock-eyed, in which case your drinking partner should probably be drinking to your health instead.

So a “cheers” is a good wish from you to another person, and as with all the sentiments you really mean, you should look the person in the eye when you say it. Unless of course they’re cock-eyed, in which case choosing which eye to direct the sentiment to can be difficult and fraught with uncertainty. I often find that looking at the space between the middle of the eyebrows is handy in such circumstances. Unless of course the person appears to have some sort of third-eye shenanigans going on, in which case you should probably have a look at how long and how much you’ve been drinking.

Someone once told me that not looking people in the eye when you “cheers” them means you’ll be cursed with bad sex for life. At the time I thought that sounded about as plausible as those chain emails that say if you don’t forward the letter to ten people immediately, bad things will happen to you. So for a while I stopped looking people in the eye during “cheers”, just to see what would happen.

The bad sex curse never appeared, mainly due to the fact that when I stopped looking people in the eye while we drank, they stopped thinking I was up for it. So ‘bad sex’ quickly became ‘no sex’. Which is another reason for maintaining eye contact. And remember: cyclops are not only the easiest people to “cheers” with, but everyone I know says they really put out. Enjoy.

Look no further for insight and advice! Send your question to Terri at dearterri@rove.com.au