Freshman year, last day of classes (lo, these many years ago):
in my freshman year boyfriend’s room with a throng, tossing back shots of some vile concoction in a totally uncharacteristic manner (usually practically a teetotaler, but, hey, it’s the last day of classes!)
I tell my boyfriend I need to head back to my room to sleep it off…
BUT
instead float two floors up “just to say hi” to a sensitive computer science major I knew sort of peripherally who I had a secret crush on.
Leading to…one of those amazing conversations where you talk about the meaning of life, and what you really believe, and your deepest hopes, and so on.
That’s the man I married! And if it hadn’t been for the drink, I might not have summoned up the courage to say more than hi to him.
When has alcohol changed your life for the better?
My wife-to-be enticed me back to her place on the night of her first date on the principle that she had some beers there and all the bars were closing.
It hadn’t occurred to me that perhaps she wanted something else.
Had it not been for alcohol, I would have spent much of my college time too shy to talk to anyone at parties. Many of those people I got up the courage to talk with (male and female) became people with whom I’d later spend much of my non-drinking time.
Drinking alcohol in bars, by making me gregarious enough to strike up conversations with total strangers (and them to strike up conversations with me), has resulted in my learning a good deal of Japanese that I’d never hear in a classroom, as well as making more than a few friends.
carlotta, that sounds really similar to how I met my SO. Neither of us are big drinkers, but we were both a little toasty the night we met. If we’d been sober, we probably both would have been too shy to do more than make awkward conversation.
I’m sure i have the details a tad confused but, IIRC, Persian councils used to vote once when sober and once when drunk on a certain issue. They thought they would get a good balance of intellect and intuition that way.
One night, while drunk, I threatened to beat up someone who was a lot bigger than me. That got the attention of my petty officer second class, which led to an alcoholism evaluation. This, in turn, led to my becoming sober.
So, deciding to threaten to beat the snot out of someone turned out to be a Good Thing.
a couple of weeks ago, i got drunk and actually got the balls to go up and talk to this girl. granted it was pretty embarrasing because we’ve been talking since then (i cant help but think of what a drunken mess i must have been) but things are going really well.
It was thanks to a few beers on my part and her part that I lost my virginity. I was something of a late bloomer (OK, very late, this happened when I was 28, and I’m now 30), and apparently had been subconsciously attracted to a friend/ coworker. She invited me out to go to watch football with some friends of hers at a local sports bar. We got a little snuggly (but not snoggy) at the sports bar, and later the whole party adjourned to a dance club. At the dance club, the friend/ coworker and I started dancing, and then sort of started making out. The rest, as they say, is history.
Had I not had a few beers, I probably would have thought that planting a liplock on a previously platonic friend who I would see at the office the following Monday was a Bad Idea.
I was dealing in Euchre, and I wasn’t sure if I should pick up the bower or pass on it. Since I was a bit tipsy I decided that I’d better pass on it, and when the bid passed around again my partner called the suit, went alone, and made all five tricks.
Um, well, this is a little weird, but the night before my boyfriend was to return to college for the year, I went to stay with his fraternity brother so we could go together the next day to pick him up from the airport.
Much drinking. A Great party. And we ended up in each other arms, naked, making out, pouring our hearts out to each other. We didn’t have intercourse, but we did plenty of other stuff. And we talked, a lot, about the difficulties we had been through the previous year–me at the hands of another fraternity brother, and him struggling with his long-distance relationship with a girl back home who his parents disapproved of.
I was really sheepish when I confessed to my boyfriend, but to his credit he laughed and said it was time we got it out of our systems.
Anyway, I consider that a good decision because I am still in touch with that guy. I think it cemented our friendship in a way that nothing else could have. He’s now married to that girl back home, and they’ve got three gorgeous kids. I lost touch with that boyfriend, but the guy and I exchange Christmas cards every year and occasional emails. He’ll be a friend for life.
When you’re sober, and you’ve gotten out of a long distance, long-term relationship just 6 months prior, dating an LA woman (heh) brings to mind many reservations.
With a few drinks (not drunk by a long shot, just a little more “loose” than normal), you tend to lose the rationality, and do what your heart tells you.
No regrets, no regrets whatsoever. I just wish we could scratch the “long distance” part already…
