Casualties of the Booze-Free Lifestyle

You know what’s just no damn fun when you can’t drink? The social event I’m gonna call The Long Hangout. That’s when there’s a gathering with no real activity or purpose — for example, no Thanksgiving dinner or bowling or whatever — when you just sit around with your friends and drink. Infer what you will about us, but that’s the overwhelming majority of social situations with my friends: We’ll go over to somebody’s house and drink, or sit outdoors all day on a bar’s patio and drink, or spend an entire weekend at Blondie & Diamond Mike’s place, drinkin by the pool. Drinking is both the fuel for the entertainment and the entertainment itself. You just mingle and chat with your friends, shootin the shit and enjoying life. You don’t even know how long you’re sitting there, really — your perception of time gets fuzzy and you don’t much care anyway unless you have to be somewhere at a certain time.

But when you’re at a Long Hangout, and you can’t drink, there’s nothing to do but listen to drunks bray the same story into your ear five times while you say things no one will remember, and watch … the … time … crawl … more … slowly … by … the … everlovin … minute. The first hour, you’re OK. Halfway through the second hour, you’re getting a little antsy. By the end of hour three, you can’t stand the sight of another motherfucking club soda with lime and you’re just trying to keep yourself from hucking a Dos Equis bottle at the wall mit force and bellowing at everyone to just FINISH YOUR FUCKING SEVENTY-THIRD MARGARITA ALREADY AND LET’S GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE.

And there’s not really any way around it. What am I gonna do, suggest we all make some goddamned arts and crafts instead, or something? People always try to tell me how great it is that at least I can watch the drunks’ antics and laugh to myself, but you know what? That shit is mean-spirited and boooring, and kind of judgmental — just the sort of thing your Career Non-Drinker is prone to — and besides, my friends aren’t the lampshade-on-the-head types with the crazy antics that you could actually laugh at. Well, a couple of them are, but these days, now that we’ve all rounded the corner of 30 and some of us are playing footsie with 40, that sort of thing mostly just happens at Diamond Mike’s. Heh.

Combine that with the fact that I am frankly and obviously jealous of people who get to drink, and it’s pretty lonely and isolating. Even more than is usual, I much prefer just being alone with Mr. Gleemonex, and I find myself choosing more and more to opt out of Long Hangout situations; our friends, noticing this, may be all “see? Once people get pregnant, they never wanna party anymore!” but that isn’t precisely the truth. I want to — it’s just no damn fun anymore.