Not intentionally, of course. My sister-in-law is a bit of a disaster and she’s visiting for the night with her 17-year old son in Calgary. The sister-in-law invited a friend (party girl) to dinner where we had some drinks and everyone got kind of tipsy but not really a problem at this point. My wife and I took the train home while everyone else rode with the friend, where they stopped by the liquor store on the way to our apartment.
I don’t much care about drinking contained to our apartment, but on one of their smoke breaks (friend, wife, and 17-year old), friend and 17-year old talk their way into the local pub for shots. They come back to apartment but want to return for more drinking/partying. I see the writing on the wall and resist, but am powerless(?) against the tide that just want to have a couple drinks at the local pub, it will be fine (yeah, right).
So the four of us (me, wife, friend, 17-year old nephew-in-law) go to pub (yes, the doorman/bouncer was that lax in Calgary). Things go bad quickly. Friend and nephew get drinks and friend/party girl gets lots of attention from the guys she can’t/won’t resist and wife and I are in the situation of forcing a grown woman out of a drunken situation she shouldn’t be in(?) or get the nephew out of there, so we choose the latter. Back in the apartment, I couldn’t stand just leaving her there and went back, but by the time I got there she was gone, car and all. It’s probably worth mentioning that we tried to make sure her car keys weren’t in her purse (verified by two individuals), but apparently that wasn’t checked enough. She was gone and in the wind on her safety status.
17-year old texted her and friend eventually called saying she was okay but not commenting if she was alone or not. On the one hand, it’s probably on her who she messed around with and if she was driving drunk, but I can’t get my involvement out of my head. Should I have put my foot down on going out? My wife would have listened, but probably not friend or 17-year-old (whose mother is useless). Insisted friend leave bar with us? Not really likely she would volunteer at this point, and do I want to cause a diplomatic incident with “the horny guys” given I am an American on a work visa?
I don’t know. I feel like shit that she eventually did something she wouldn’t have at the beginning of the night, but I can’t clearly say where I would done things differently. Maybe I won’t be up all night thinking about this now. (not that i shouldn’t be).
It is by will alone she set her mind in motion. It is by the juice of Jäger that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by will alone she set her mind in motion.
Sorry about the Dune reference. I couldn’t help it.
You were acting responsibly, and shit happened. If you wantonly let your kid play on the freeway, that’s a different story, but even if you hover over someone like a hawk, bad things can still happen.
Add in their own free will, and your responsibility becomes irrelevant. You’re not at fault.
If she didn’t get raped/killed in car crash last night, she’ll get raped/killed in a car crash tonight, or tomorrow night. Some people you just can’t help. At least someone acted like a grownup, belatedly, and looked after the 17-year-old.
Maybe she was feeling randy and looking for some action? Sometimes women want to get drunk and pick up on/get picked up by men. Shit happens, but most men aren’t rapists and by that age most women have figured out the difference between “Wow, I want to go home with this stud” and “Oh, I just want to talk, not have sex!” Getting sloshed and hitting on guys in a club may not be the 100% safest way to get your jollies, but it’s what rocks some people’s boat.
I’ll give you that it’s probably not appropriate to bring your 17 year old along. But you made a good faith effort to keep her off the road, and her sex life isn’t really your problem. Nothing bad happened, so try not to worry about it.
So you’re wanting her to resist better, even when drunk? But you admit you couldn’t resist peer pressure to go to the bar, at the same time! Hmmm…
You kind of seem to be slamming her for drunk driving, while you took an underage teenager into a bar to drink! Hmmm…
Maybe give that some thought, is all.
But don’t beat yourself up too much. Party girls go out and drink till their judgment loosens, by design. That, ‘a little too drunk, fodder for any shark in the bar’, is kind of the dynamic they are counting on. They are too drunk to contemplate the nature of the attention they are attracting, but the attention makes them feel good. That’s all that matters. I’d wager it’s not the first time she’s played it this way, and it won’t be the last.
Next time follow your instinct and bow out, leave the drama to them if they enjoy it.
I think in general you did pretty good. I think most people would need to have actually been there to get an idea of what would have worked absolutely best. Words can only convey the actual social dynamic so well.
One thing though. I wouldn’t let somebody I knew was drunk go out the door if I thought they were going to be driving. I’d call the cops on em. I’d tell I was going to do it first and hope they came to their senses. Yeah, if they wanna get drunk and get a DUI thats their business. Wanna wreck the car and/or kill yourself? Your choice. But what if they also kill an innocent other party?
Imagine how bad you’d feel if you let somebody slooshed walk out the door to drive and they kill an innocent family on the road.
Condolences on even having to deal with this sorta situation. The only outcomes for these sorta things are bad and worse.
I say good job on getting the 17 year old out of there. I agree with everything else after that. If someone drives drunk or goes home with a stranger, that is on them. They can deal with the consequences. I am not a police officer, a relationship counselor, or someone’s father. Let adults do what they will after giving them your advice.
Drinking age in Ontario is 19. You knowingly cooperated with your wife and your sister in law sneaking an underage 17 year old minor into a bar for drinks, and it’s the *doorman’s *fault for not being diligent enough? Damn those rotten doormen!
Yeah… it’s hard to see where you had any influence or power to make things come out differently at all. You poor guy, it must suck to have people dragging you into one stupid and dangeous thing after another against your better judgement, and you being utterly powerless to do anything about it.
Yes, if I understand the OP correctly, the sister-in-law is the mother of the seventeen year old. Why wasn’t she being responsible for his behavior? She should have been the one telling her son he couldn’t go drinking in a pub.
I always try not to leave a drunken woman behind. I once interrupted a lay even, because the woman was close to being dead drunk and the guy was not far behind. Trouble is, my wife interprets these uncustomary acts of gallantry as just my own set-up for a lay.
I think you behaved ok. Not much you can do short of physically carrying her out of the bar.
On a side note - I HAVE done that before. Not long after her divorce, friend of wife was upset and went out to party with wife. Wife called me later in the night to take them home. Her friend didn’t want to leave. Given her state of mind, and state of inebriation, we didn’t want to leave her there. So I picked her up and carried her out.
Sounds like party girl friend is who got left behind. Sounds like she was the friend of the sister-in-law. How old is she? If she’s of legal age, you have no responsibility for her other than to offer her a way home. Don’t sweat it. Even drunk-ass party girls are responsible for their behaviors.
My husband and I were driving around in Calgary at about the same time you friend was driving around Calgary drunk - you can tell her from me that I don’t appreciate her trying to kill me and my loved ones.
While IMO you were certainly doing the right thing I think I should point something out. In this legal day and age I suspect that lady could probably get you in trouble for assualt, kidnapping, and heck, probably sexual assault. I would only do that to somebody I was damn sure wouldn’t be pissed at me once they sobbered up.
Yeah I was sure she wouldn’t be pissed at me, but more than that - this is Singapore. The attitude here is a little, uh, different to how it is in America to such matters (yeah, we still have a crime on the books called sex against nature and you often read in the paper “consensual” sex with a minor)