How To Smoothly Accept Or Reject A Guy's Offer To Buy You A Drink

You're at a bar with all of your friends, and a guy comes walking toward you from across the room. He's cute, but he's not necessarily your type.

The two of you start chatting, and a few seconds of mindless small talk later, he's offering to buy you a drink.

Now, there are two obvious options here: 1) You accept the drink, or 2) you decline it.

The decision is completely up to you, and both are totally viable options. But no matter what you decide, you don't want to be rude AF to this guy.

I spoke with Etiquette Expert and Founder of The Protocol School of Palm Beach, Jacqueline Whitmore, to create your very own etiquette guide for accepting and rejecting drinks from guys.

Here are here genius tips:

If you want the drink...

If you want the drink, it's pretty simple. Accept the drink in a courteous manor. Whitmore encourages you to "say thank you."

But, you can't just take your drink and peace right out of the conversation.

"Engage in some friendly chit-chat, but you are not obligated to do more than that," Whitmore says.

So basically, you owe the dude a couple minutes of conversation about how packed this bar is or how cold it is outside, but that's it.

No need to go home with him or spend the rest of your night trapped in the most boring convo ever.

If you don't...

Not wanting the drink is also a totally viable option, and there's a polite way to handle that scenario as well.

Whitmore gives us a couple of sure-fire excuses to get out of it:  "Say thank you, but you are trying to cut back, have to drive or you don't accept drinks from strangers."

I, personally, like to go the more upfront route, so I'd probably go with "I don't accept drinks from strangers."

But, I've got plenty of friends who just feel awkward saying "No" to perfectly nice people. For them, I'd say the cutting back excuse seems like MONEY IN THE BANK.

You get out of the drink you don't want, and you don't risk hurting anyone's feelings.

So what do you do if he's already gotten you the drink? Well, Whitmore explains, "Give the drink to the bartender and tell him or her to enjoy it."

I love where her head's at. First of all, it makes you look super nice in general. Second, it gets you out of having the drink. WIN-WIN.

Also, as a general rule of thumb, you should probably never accept a drink from a stranger who walks up to you with the drink already purchased. There's a very high chance that drink has something slipped in it.

BE EDUCATED PARTIERS, YOU GUYS.