I'm a bartender - here are 10 red flags you're about to get cut off

But my decision to cut someone off isn't necessarily as black and white as it may seem.

For starters, I try to factor in that some people are rougher around the edges than others: A person may just not be the most spatially aware, or particularly care about looking graceful.

However, I apply strict scrutiny if said person is walking up and down flights of stairs to grab a drink from the bar, as is often the case at the three-story bar where I work.

Nothing will make a bartender cut you off quicker than the heightened probability of a lawsuit, like if say, a patron were to tumble down a flight of stairs.

If we're skeptical of your claim that you'll be hailing a cab home, we might be more inclined to cut you off.

On the other hand, scrutiny might be more lightly applied if we know that you're going to get home safe — for instance, you're staying at the hotel in the very bar where you're drinking. Worst case scenario, you might need to be wheeled back to your room. Which, I have seen happen before. And I did feel awful that I inadvertently served someone to that point. The experience was definitely a stressful one.

But that night was far less stressful than the alternative worst case scenario — that an over-served guest might sleep in a jail cell after injuring themselves or someone else with their car.

If you've gone from stoic, to slightly talkative, to regurgitating your emotions to anyone in earshot, you should probably stop drinking.

And we might have to make you, if you can't take the hint.

Speaking of taking a hint, this is where my "passive cutoff" techniques come into play. Because of how poorly the process always, always goes, I avoid formally cutting people off like I avoid filing my taxes (one day before the deadline, after submitting an extension).

So while I may rarely cut people off to their face, a passive cutoff is a frequent tactic to delay an otherwise inevitable, awkward, and possibly hostile hard cutoff.

What's a passive cutoff? For starters, I'm definitely avoiding eye contact with you when you approach the bar. I'll also hope you catch the hint to please pace yourself when I pass you water in the meantime.

But if you continually say no to water, or seem really intent on drinking for the sake of getting hammered, it's a bright yellow flag for sure that may lead to my pulling a red card on your drinking.

Similar to the non-water drinkers, I might also passively cut off someone who continually mentions how empty their stomach is.

In my experience, including the one with the aforementioned hotel guest, these are the people who skyrocket from zero to wasted after the next drink, even if their prior cocktails hadn't had much of an impact inebriation-wise.

Where I live, saying "I'm drunk" are the magic words — or perhaps cursed words, in your case.

If you plainly say that you are inebriated, by law in North Carolina, I can't serve you.

I've found that citing the law is the least uncomfortable way to cut someone off, since it's so brutally bureaucratic.

I've had patrons with that distant, thousand-yard stare still insist on trying to order another drink.

That's a hard pass from us. These to me are the trademark gazes of a person on the verge of being sick. And we definitely don't want to deal with that mess.

Another of my favorite physical indicators are what I call "T. rex arms" or "T-rexing." This is when a person is, for balance purposes, keeping their arms curled in tightly to their body, as though their elbows are fused with their torso.

This is an instance where we'll probably escalate from cutting you off to actually asking you to leave the bar.

Needless to say, we won't continue to serve you alcohol once you've started putting your head on the bar, or are otherwise visibly asleep or nodding off.

No, this isn't the reason you've been cut off. But if you're on the cusp and I need to make a judgment call with regard to serving or not serving you, niceness will help your cause.

You can start by not saying some of these rude and insulting — but all too common — comments I hear behind the bar.