I (31M) just got out of a relationship (24F) where drinking was a bit of an issue. I used to be a very heavy drinker in college but had to tone it down for life reasons. I still love alcohol and barhopping and the drinking culture – especially beer, but over the years I’ve been able to tone it down to the point where I can just kind of coast with a few drinks all night – maybe 3 to 4 for the entire night. I don’t mind a girl that likes to party, but dating this girl hit me with some red flags I didn’t realize I had, and now I’m trying to figure out how to navigate this with women in the future as a guy who still likes to barhop.
Basically she was unable to stop herself from continuing to drink all night once she started, and would often try to drive afterwards, putting me in a weird spot especially early on. The whole reason I took her back to my place the first time was to stop her from drinking and driving which stressed me out. She also had the habit of becoming very distant and stubborn as a drunk person to the point where I didn’t enjoy her company when I was sober. She would also chain smoke cigarettes while drinking and become kind of grimy to hook up with. The drunk x sober hookup dynamic early on in a relationship is a little weird in general… I never really noticed stuff like this as a heavier drinker so I’m not really sure how/where to draw the line with someone over this.
I feel like I really don’t want to get to the point of having to say “Hey I am not attracted to you when you are drunk” again because that didn’t go well… Just wondering going forward how early and what exactly I should be communicating to a potential girlfriend about drinking.
TL;DR I like barhopping, but have to keep my drinking relatively under control. Have found out I find certain types of drunks/drunk behavior to be unattractive/stressful. Wondering how to set boundaries around alcohol in a relationship.
2 comments
Well, she was an alcoholic. Not everyone who drinks is an alcoholic. If somebody is trying to drive drunk, then they need to get treatment. You can draw a hard line about not accepting people in your life who try to drive while drunk. As to drunk – sober hook ups, those should not be happening. Getting consent from someone who is intoxicated is difficult. A little tipsy, sure, but seriously drunk – nope. You would need to know the person well and have discussed sex under the influence together while the person was sober to ensure you have true consent, and that just doesn’t work with a hook up. If someone gets drunk, then that’s pretty much it for the physical connection that night.
This is one of those things where you can’t really don’t much except cross this bridge when you come to it. Because what boundary/ies are you considering setting, at this point?
Telling someone as soon as you meet them that you don’t particularly care for being around (for lack of a better term) ‘bad drunks’ is fine, but how many people are a) self aware enough to know exactly how they act when drunk and 2) willing to be completely honest about it to a new date? I mean who’s going to come out and say ‘oh yeah I’m really bad with booze, I always drink and drive after a night out, I’m surprised I haven’t had an accident’?!
Until you can actually witness someone’s behaviour for yourself, there isn’t much to say or do. You can certainly have a conversation about drinking in general, so as to get some idea of your potential dates’ attitudes, but that will only take you so far.