Time Out New York
Dating Under the Influence
by Julia Allison
January 3, 2008

Drinking & dating is almost as dangerous as drinking & driving (or just being Britney Spears, on a good day). Best case scenario, you’ll act crazy but you won’t remember anything. Worst case? Um .. you’ll act crazy but you will remember everything.

This is why, you can ask me on a drink date, but I’ll be pounding New York’s finest … tap water, that is. That’s right: I no longer drink – not because I was once an alcoholic, or because I used to get plastered and sleep with the Paul Jankas of the city.

My road to more-or-less teetotalism was a winding one. I was a late-blooming Drinker. High school prom came and went without me falling into an alcoholic stupor, and while I attended dozens of frat parties in college, I didn’t vomit into any bushes.

But after a stint on Capitol Hill - where alcohol consumed, both literally and figuratively, a large portion of the off-hours, I found that I may not have liked the taste – but I sure as hell liked the feeling! I quickly became a fan of the shot, and the sweet but very, very hard mixed drink. I didn’t go out much, but when I did? Boy did I get drunk.

When I moved to New York, I did what any normal single would do – I “grabbed drinks” (a term that should be redubbed “grab drunks”). Given that my tolerance hovers somewhere between really-really-really low and actually-negative, it didn’t take more than three glasses of wine for me to stumble forming sentences with both nouns and verbs.

As a result, the entire first six months of one of my relationships is … uh … how shall I say this? Blurry.

I violated the cardinal rule on a boozy Halloween 2006 and combined hard, beer, wine, and champagne. After vomiting eight times the next day, I thought “I can’t believe I did this to myself.” And then I saw the photos: Drunk doesn’t look “cute.”

So I started actually reflecting on my alcohol-imbibing habits. When did I do it? It seemed that I drank on only two occasions: when I was at a function (a party or event) or when I was on a date.

And why?

1) Because I was nervous.

2) Because I was bored.

3) Because it was a habit.

All pretty crappy reasons for consuming a high caloric, toxic, hand grenade of a beverage.

Now, I’m not against drinking on occasion - I just don’t want to drink UNTHINKINGLY. If I’m nervous, I want to feel it - to think my way out of it, instead of drink my way out of it. If I’m bored, I leave the situation, instead of numbing it. And since I think about why and when I’m drinking, I never imbibe just out of habit - so the times when I do - a great red over a nice dinner, a champagne to celebrate something - seem really special.

It turns out I’m not the only one who’s come to this conclusion.

“Cocktails take the edge off,” says Melissa, 38, an admin assistant. “But you know what’s even better? When you are authentically nervous about a date, and you have all your faculties intact, so you can really feel the anxiety. It’s palpable; it’s screaming ‘Gin. Now!’ And your date is nervous, too. You’re thinking that you finally understand why drinking goes so well with dating, and then it happens … your date says something cute. You say something funny. The anxiety dissipates. You realize that everything is going to be okay. And you’re sober! You can really revel in the moment of “I have nothing to worry about. We obviously like each other.””

And if you don’t? Well, “the bad stories make the best brunch entertainment.”

Not to mention that if it doesn’t go well, at least you can realize that before you, say, date them for two years, like my friend Ashley. “When I was a junior in college,” says Ashley. “I met my long-term (now ex) boyfriend while at the bar for happy hour. We got trashed and I went home with him that night (I don’t remember it). Later I realized that the MAJORITY of the two years we spent together was drunk.”

“What I was living was a complete fantasy, made up by myself, in order to try to convince myself I was happy being in love with this person. I wasn’t, and I don’t think I ever was completely happy. How can you be happy with someone that you are rarely sober with?”

Time for a detox, she decided. No more mixing men & booze! Not to mention, she adds, “I’m ten times more fun when I am sober. Girls should remind themselves of that more often.”

Everyone should.