Deciding to open a bottle of wine when you’re alone is a process. The problem is that a bottle is too much to drink alone, but you don’t want to only have one glass and let the rest go bad. But wine is the perfect drink to have alone; whipping yourself up a vodka cocktail on a night in while watching Netflix by yourself seems like part of your distant future, maybe one you’re not ready to succumb to just yet. Wine is sophisticated. It says, “I’m not drinking to get drunk because I am an adult and I willfully enjoy the taste of this beverage!” Vodka tells the uncomfortable truth, which is, “Please can I be drunk now?” and it’s fine that we’re not ready to accept that part of being an adult means occasionally reverting to drinking like we’re in college again.

Speaking of being excessively drunk, that’s exactly what you will be if you drink a whole bottle of wine alone in one sitting. Which is why deciding to open the wine in the first place involves so much back and forth in your own head—You WANT the wine, but you don’t necessarily want ALL the wine. Wine bottles are proof that the world is out to destroy single people, because half a bottle of wine is the PERFECT amount of wine for an individual, ergo a full bottle of wine is designed for enjoyment by a couple of people. I mean, you could go next door and invite the 80-year-old Puerto Rican man who always tells you to stop smoking because you’re going to die from it over for a tipple, but you’re not really sure what you’d talk about. It’s like your own personal Hamlet: to open the wine alone or not to open the wine alone? That is the question.