Women, be honest: How many beverages do you have next to you right now?

Women, let’s be honest with ourselves, we like options. We always pack too many shirts for a weekend trip just in case we get there and don’t want to wear the outfit we packed and, at the risk of enforcing stereotypes, we often cannot make up our minds about dinner. Beverages? No different.

When it comes down to your daily routine, you always want to have a choice. One simple way of making that happen is by having three drinks next to you at any given time. I currently have a coffee, some sweet tea, and my water nearby. Who knows when I might need one or all three at the same time.

You may be asking: Why now? Why is this coming up? That, I could not tell you but it does seem as if every single social media platform is suddenly celebrating this fact about women. I first noticed it in a TikTok captioned “Hawk Tuah for the girls” featuring a man saying that women were always going to have three drinks and that men just didn’t need the cupholder.

Then women on X (formerly known as Twitter) shared pictures of their own daily collections.

Even memes on Instagram have tried to explain the three drinks thing. On the one hand, it makes me very happy to see it as something that is very much embraced. Women aren’t being mocked for having multiple drinks. Instead, this is just a thing that is seemingly universal and people are accepting it.

But there is also this idea of the “three drinks rule” popping up.

What is the three drinks rule?

There are studies (not really) on this. The idea is that the three options should “Caffeinate, alleviate, hydrate.” The phrase, according to the internet is “Caffeinate, alleviate, hydrate, is the new live, laugh, love.”

Each drink serves a purpose. One to kickstart the day (the caffeinate part), water (hydrate), and a drink that brings you joy (the Marie Kondo version of liquid a.k.a. alleviate). Personally, I do this and didn’t think anything else about it. I just start my day with some sweet tea to take my pills, add some water because I have to be reminded to drink a lot of water, and then I have my coffee because I’m not me without it.

Yes, it is maybe in our hard wiring so we don’t forget to hydrate. I also just think that a lot of us love having the option for something else. I don’t like to be tied down by one choice. Variety is the spice of life and that also applies to what drink I am drinking at any given moment.

Even at bars, I like to have water and my drink drink and maybe I will ask for a little soda if I need something refreshing. Do you see? The three drink problem is just that we are over-prepared for our needs at any given moment and I think that is very special of us.