Dating while Drunk... or not.

Two things seem to go together as well as peanut butter and jelly - alochol and social situations.  And what's the most social of social situations? Dating of course!  So how do dating and alochol mix - depends on what your end goal is! 

Now, I've said before, I have some real issues with eharmony.com - but even I have to admit they do provide some good articles and some good advice (although with any advice you have to take it with a grain of salt - or as with me a bit of obnoxious attitude!)

First, lets examine the rules of alcohol and dating.

1.  Get Familiar with your Alcohol Tolerance.
This should be obvious, but there are a lot of people (especially those of the girl variety!) that don't know how many drinks they can consume without being fall down drunk, tipsy, or just fine.  And hey girls, this might be obvious and really shouldn't be an "ah ha" moment - but girls, the guy is typically bigger than you and matching him drink for drink is going to leave you drunker than him.  So, girls... if you don't drink that much - don't on dates!  Now, believe it or not... I'm not a big drinker - I MIGHT have a drink every 2 months or so.  Granted, when I drink I really drink, which is a cause for alarm.  And basically I'm my own don't!  But I will tell you I would never drink like that on a date! 

2. Consider the entire evening.

Living in the moment is great - if you have no other moments coming up.  Because I have to tell you, that hangover is going to be a bitch!  Think about the date, and don't go overboard!  A happy hour date and drinks.  Dinner and wine.  After dinner drinks.  All of that adds up and can lead to a very drunk girl - and as we all know - drunk dates and messy drunk girls are bad.  Basically if you have multiple drinking opportunities and drink at everyone of these opportunities you are going to end up one very sick girl or boy. 
3. If you've experienced addiction in your past…

If you are anything like me you have a strange addiction to the new round of shows like "My Strange Addiction" or "Intervention" or "Addicted" or the millions of others that center on all of the weird - and not so weird addicitons people have.  And while a lot of people want to hide all that shit, some want to just get it out in the open.  But, it's better to keep those type of declarations of "issues" for later revelations in the relationship (but don't wait too long - keeping that kind of secret will eat you up and provide for an ugliness you don't want to keep from a potential long term partner).  To solve the stickiness for the first date situation and not drinking - a simple, "No drinking for me tonight" is more than sufficient.

4. How are you getting the car home?

Very few things are worse in the world than Drinking and Driving!  Now in the DC metro area (where I live) we are very lucky to have a robust public transportation system that employs both rail and bus and has many cabs available if you have one (or many) too many.  But this isn't the case everywhere.  Never ever ever drive drunk, and if your dates insist on driving you home while intoxicated refuse.  And would you really want to be with such a man (or woman!) who shows such bad judgement?  The answer is probably not!