Once again, I was struck by the unusual feeling of waking up on a Friday morning with a completely clear, albeit tired, mind. Throughout my uneventful but productive day, I was consumed by thoughts of my latest 'new' experience that would occur that evening: a sober date.
To protect the innocent, I will not go in to the details of the evening, however suffice it to say that it was a far more disconcerting experience than I had envisaged. Perhaps I had grown 'over confident' in my ability to handle social situations without alcohol, but I did not feel comfortable. Certainly the amount of coffee I had consumed that day did not help, and neither am I a fan of anything other than very laid back Friday evenings, but I found my thoughts drifting to my early Saturday morning run, my day at work, my plans for the weekend...everything but the conversation with the charming and attractive person in front of me. My mind, which that day had been so active, seemed to be seizing up. Dating, particularly the NYC style of dating (London folk, I can explain separately, but trust me, it is different) which can often feel more like a job interview than a night out, is rarely a comfortable affair. The anxiety, nerves, and adrenalin that accompany the 'first date' are enough to drive anyone to drink. My friend and I often joke of the virtual necessity of a couple of 'looseners' before a date, and this is an approach I had followed religiously in the past year of being single, occasionally to levels where 'loose' would be something of an understatement. Not having the ability to simply drink my way through the uncomfortable moments was not something that I enjoyed, and I'm pretty sure the person I was with was able to sense that. The night ended fairly early, with vague promises of 'doing it again sometime', but I think this was more to avoid an awkward goodbye. However later I was also struck by the thought that perhaps this date was not dissimilar to any other that I had been on, and my clarity of mind served to amplify the absurdity of a situation that we willingly put ourselves through in the pursuit of companionship. Once again, experience will yield a more firm answer.
When I relayed the full story to my friends in London on Monday, I was met with a rather cynical, but perhaps accurate, summation of my situation..."I'm not surprised. Do you really think you want to date someone who'd date someone who doesn't drink? I think you're going to have to just not see any girls for a while."
Another close friend, who chose to stop drinking over a year ago, has an incredible knack of explaining feelings that I am experiencing yet am not eloquent enough to express. When I told him the story of my Friday night, he said something which both moved and encouraged me, because I could identify with it so closely. I paraphrase, but it was along the lines of "when you are no longer in that self destructive state of mind, you stop hating yourself and you value yourself more. You don't look at awkward dates or a lack of chemistry as a personal failing, but rather you see it for what it is, a lack of chemistry, something simple and nothing to be ashamed of. You stop seeing everything in terms of what the other person thinks of you, and you become proud of yourself and the person you are."
With all respect to my friend in London, I think I prefer the second explanation.
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