My last “relationship” would have lasted infinitely longer had both parties been drunk the entire time. Well, maybe not but it’s a theory I have, which sadly (or not) will never be proven.
But really, one should never underestimate the power of alcohol and here’s why: This summer was perhaps my largest dabble into a world in which I only ever saw on reality tv or made fun of at my high school.
Let me start by saying I was never a fan of alcohol in high school. Coming of age in a school where the majority of the budget was spent on the football team while our newspaper staff had to pick oranges to fund a single issue, I associated alcohol with the skanky girls who dated the football players and posted MySpace pictures of themselves with beer cans and updated their Facebook statuses with the details of ‘Thirsty Thursday.’
Basically I was haughty and took pride in my abstinence and the fact that the only “drinks” I had ever had were sips of my dad’s beer or a lick of salt off my mom’s strawberry daiquiri. And this continued into my freshman year of college. Frat parties? Drinking 40s in the forest? Drunk girls crying in the bathroom? Throwing up on a roommate’s bed? No thank you. Instead I lived the glamorous life of scheduling lunches with my Latin American Studies professor (yes, in retrospect it was creepy as it sounds), working on the board of Model UN, and attempting to learn Cantonese with my Asian posse of friends. Sometimes I even went crazy and went to a midnight meal at Nine Dining. I also juggled the constant phone calls/texting of then-boyfriend, though apparently I hadn’t understood alcohol as an emotional release just yet.
Don’t worry this story ends happily: spring break meant the beginning of 4 p.m. drinking parties and me attending dinner with my grandparents under the lovely fog that is a safety buzz. Then summer came and there was both celebration and boredom to be met. Best Friend and I celebrated his graduating high school next to a water fall with a bottle of champagne and an iPod with portable speakers. The official kickoff to summer was later that week and again began at 4 p.m. and amazingly, somehow, I was able to consume five to six shots of rum with barely any side-effects, meaning I didn’t get drunk. That night I also got to know some people who would become even better friends and for better or worse, experienced the rein of the Gypsy King.
With alcohol I learned that certain foods become amazing. Take, for example, grandma bread and boxed macaroni and cheese. Who knew. Friendly competition became necessary and a couple girlfriends and I invented the gold star system which basically tested our capabilities of desperation with two underage boys. Cougars are in style, what can we say?
I played beer pong with people I didn’t know, was strangely good at it (to this day, the drunker I get, the more my athletic abilities strengthen), realized I could have much in common with an O Chem major, didn’t mind being hit on by a bisexual man, and that night developed what would become a unique friendship with the Gypsy King as Best Friend drove us home from the most obscure party with us giggling in the backseat.
Since that fateful night, I’ve realized that my real alcohol of choice is vodka, but more than all else, I’ve fallen in love with alcohol. This may sound absolutely absurd, mostly because it actually is, but I’ve come to realize that for me, being slightly buzzed is not only the preferred way I’d like to view the world, but it also apparently is the way the world would like to view me.
Seriously, while other girls have complained about the horrendous events that have happened due to a particularly inebriated moment, I have always ended up better off for said moments.
My drunken text messages and phone calls have always led to a renewed friendship, a resuscitated bond, and/or a one-time-only-but-nevertheless-emotionally-real conversation with an old high school acquaintance or some equally random relationship. (For example: “Hey, I’m drunk and really sorry about what I said the other night.” “Oh hey, I’m drunk too. All is well and forgiven.”)
And the aforementioned doomed but beautiful relationship began midsummer with a blind date to the drive-in and a shared can of beer in the car. Being pulled over at 4 a.m. was no problem. Alcohol intoxication was a cornerstone of confidence, and was replaced with kissing intoxication and we were invincible to the law that night. A night of Jell-O shots and Keystone Light left me with a stolen purse but only reinforced the fact that in our drunken eyes we were star-crossed lovers. That realization was followed by an evening of party hopping and laying in the grass with a Mexican blanket, deciding that I would then be referred to as ‘Russian Man’ and he ‘American Man.’
Alcohol gave me a summer fling, but I lied when I said that alcohol has always been on my side. Like any good buzz, nothing can stay and it was when I sobered up that I realized in no way, shape, or form, could I ever be the GF that BF so desperately craved or vice versa. Not even a pitiful round of shots on a road trip could fix that fact, and for the first time my old companion alcohol left me crying on Best Friend’s lap because I was despondent and wasted and talking about how I’d never find someone to love me.
Weeks later in a separate but related event, I was again crying on Best Friend because I was angry and wasted and talking about how I wasn’t ever going to get over the last boy who broke my heart (which actually turned out to be completely accurate), and again on a night when I was antisocial and wasted and just wanted someone with a car to drive me away from everything.
Now that summer is coming to a close and with school being a week away, I’ve decided to turn in my shot glass and bid Cesar Chavez adieu. Of course I love the fact that drinking in unfamiliar places is always more fun and I’ll never deny the fact that alcohol has more or less made every man I know more homosexual, there has to be a time and place for everything and maybe alcohol just shouldn’t fit into my school schedule. That is, until Gypsy King joins a frat and promises to take me along to the parties with him.
Vive le vin!
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