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I'm copying and pasting this from my Facebook page. It somehow seems appropriate to this thread, as well as the myriad other threads on this topic. Yes, I am the person in the story, and yes, it's 100% true. This, my friends, is how to approach a first date 
David Gets Drunk; Nice Girl Gets Caught in the Middle
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Thursday, January 29, 2009 at 2:58pm | Edit Note | Delete
One of the things I am known for is occasionally - and if by "occasionally", I actually mean "constantly" - drinking. Wait, you knew that. OK, well I also often start drinking pretty early in the day. This doesn't necessarily mean I'm getting drunk at 9am, although you've gotta admit that sounds like something you'd like to try at least once. No, often times this simply means a couple of beers with lunch around 11:00am, followed by a couple of beers after. Granted, sometimes this turns into "a couple of shots after", which of course leads into a fun-filled day and more than likely, a story for you, the fortunate reader. Most of the time, though, I keep it under control, because I'm not actually an alcoholic. Those *******s are quitters who go to meetings.
This was not one of those times.
About two weeks ago, I woke up abnormally early on a Friday, maybe around 8:30am. I was off work that day, and had drank heavily the night before, so this confused me. Once I'm up, though, I'm usually up for the day, so I got my morning started. Showered, got dressed, ran a couple of errands, and by that point, it was approaching lunchtime. Well, approaching 10:30, which is good enough for my purposes. I headed up to BJs, which really does have outstanding food. If you want a deep dish pizza in Austin, this place has some of the best, but really, for a chain restaurant, almost everything is pretty good. They have pretty good microbrews, too.
I'm not feeling too excited about beer - yet - so I decide to start with liquor. Since it's still, technically, the morning, juice seems appropriate, so I settle on Kettle One and OJ. Lesser vodkas like Absolut and Smirnoff, which rightly belong in the well of any self-respecting bar, can kiss my ass. I spot my favorite bartender so I move my party up to the bar, order some food, and settle in. This guy starts feeding me drinks like he's planning on date raping me, and I start drinking them like I'm hoping he will. In between drinks we're shooting the **** a little bit, and I casually mention that I have a date later that night.
Forgot to mention that, did I? Let me explain. A week or so ago, I'd met a girl (who was, shockingly enough, my age). We hit it off, she gave me her number, and a few days later I called her and invited her out to meet me at a wine bar later that week. On Friday, in fact. Was it a good idea for me to start drinking at 10:30am on that Friday? Well, I'll leave it to you, the discriminating reader, to decide, but in my defense, I wasn't planning on getting drunk. Actually, that's bull****. There I go, lying again. It was actually my plan all along to show up to this date drunk. The excuse I gave people for this was that I wanted her to see me at my potential worst on the first date, that way, if she stuck around, I wouldn't worry about shocking her. Now, that excuse actually makes sense, but the real reason is this: I ****ing wanted to. I wanted to show up completely ****faced on a first date to see what happened, and the reason is very simple. If I don't find situations like that in which to put myself, how do you expect me to get new material? Anyway, this had nothing to do with the girl - she wasn't annoying, ugly, fat, a *****, or anything else that would make me want to **** with her. It was just a case of Manny being Manny (and if you're not a baseball fan and don't get the reference, I'm not explaining it).
Anyway, back to BJs. Trace - the bartender - expressed a bit of surprise that I'm drinking this heavily. It's tough to blame him for that, although when I fed him the bull**** excuse, he seemed to buy it. Guess he doesn't know me very well. I end up hanging out for a couple more hours, do several shots - in this case, straight chilled Stoli, another one of my favorite vodkas - read the paper, do the crossword puzzle, and just generally hang out. Around 3pm I close out my surprisingly light tab - Trace felt bad for forgetting to buy me a Christmas present, apparently - and walked to my next stop, Applebees.
As usual at this time of day, the place was pretty much empty. I decide to continue drinking screwdrivers, because even though the OJ does dilute the alcohol, they taste pretty damn good. Unfortunately, there is no Kettle One to be had at Applebees, so I settle on something else - but at this point, I don't think I would have noticed the difference, anyway. A few minutes later, my good friend TheVirgin walks in. I call her that because, predictably enough, she does not hook up. She's a really good friend of mine, though - probably one of my only female friends, in fact. I should actually do a story on her, because some of the **** that comes out of her mouth is pretty unbelievable, especially when she gets drunk.
But I digress. TheVirgin came in, sat down at the bar with me and ordered some food - apparently she had to go back to work. She ate, we bull****ted briefly, and she left with a promise to return by 5 or 5:30. Given that I told her about my date that night and my plan for it, I think she wanted to see what kind of shape I would be in when I actually went on the date. I continued to drink, chatting with the bartender and whomever came in and sat down. Of course, I continued drinking, alternating screwdrivers and shots. Unfortunately, eventually drinking catches up even to me. By 5:00, I have no clue how much I'd had to drink, since let's face it - only a ***** counts. It had to be in the neighborhood of 8 or 9 vodka shots and a larger number of screwdrivers.
TheVirgin walks back in, and I can barely sit upright. She saw my state, and correctly decided that if I continued to drink, there is no way I would make it downtown. She manages to convince me of this, and I switch to black coffee and iced water. Now, let's stop right here for a second. Normally, I'd keep drinking and not switch to something non-alcoholic. In this case, though, I actually did want to make it downtown for my date. So, over the next hour and a half I drank black coffee like a caffeine addict (actually, I am a caffeine addict. Farfetched, I know). Another friend of mine shows up and tries to dissuade me from going out. Predictably, he failed.
Around 6:30, I am relatively sober, if by "relatively sober" I mean relative to my state of inebriation at 5:30. I stagger out of Applebees, stumble into a cab, and manage to slur my destination - Cork wine bar - to the cab driver. I had a large To Go cup full of coffee, and sipped on that as I continued to sober up on the way.
Or at least, I imagine that's what happened, since I literally have a blank spot in time between around 5pm and the time the cab dropped me off at Cork. All I know is that I ended up at the wine bar. My date was running late, so I grabbed a spot at the bar, ordered a glass of wine, and waited. She showed up a few minutes later. Now, before we get into the date, I think it's important to note that I do a VERY good job of "holding it together" when I need to. I've talked my way out of Public Intox arrests, I've talked the police out of arresting a friend for getting into a fight on 6th St, I've talked bartenders into not cutting me off, and you can be damn sure I'm capable of acting sober on a date. The one thing I'm not able to do is watch what I say - I literally have NO brain-to-mouth filter, and will say whatever pops into my head.
Some choice samples of conversation from the night:
Me: "So, you're a natural red head, or what?
Her: "Natural, why?"
Me: "Just curious - you know what they say about redheads."
Her: "What, that we're crazy and have tempers?"
Me: "No, that you're really good in bed."
Her: "...well, maybe."
Me: (after talking about what we do, and with evident disappointment) "So you're a lawyer."
Her: "Yes"
Me: "I dated a lawyer once."
Her: "Really?"
Me: "Yes. She was an alcoholic ***** who cheated on me. Also, she was bipolar. Are you bipolar?"
Me: (after a pause in conversation, in which she was sitting close and staring at me) "You look like you're about to kiss me."
Her: "You want me to kiss you?"
Me: "Yes."
Her: (kisses me)
And so on, and so forth. Those are the three that I remember, but I'm sure there are more. That's why I really need a voice recorder, because I guarantee you, if I could have recorded our conversation - which we had over the course of almost three bottles of wine - and played it back for my friends, we would have laughed our asses off and probably put it up on Youtube, where I would have become famous.
In any case, we managed to hang out at the bar until probably 10:30 or 11:00. I'm sure she could tell I'd been drinking - in fact, I'm sure I told her so. But if she was offended, she must have had a weird way of showing it, considering the fact that we made out at the bar, outside of the bar, and at her car when I walked back with her. Unfortunately, this story doesn't end with me getting laid. She had told me before hand (as in, when I called her the first time to invite her out) that she had an early day on Saturday so we'd have to make it an early night. Having sex wasn't even my goal for the night - my goal was to go to, and make it through, a first date while ****faced. End result? David 1, Appropriate Behavior 0.
Actually, that wasn't the end of the night. No, I decided it would be a good idea to go play poker at a local card room. I grabbed a cab, had it take me to the game, where I'm sure everyone was excited to see me. They were right to be excited, as this night ended up costing me more than a couple of bar tabs, and that's putting it mildly.
The sad, but not unexpected, postscript to the story is this: I called the girl a couple of days later. She didn't pick up, so I left her a message basically saying I'd had a good time and was free on x day, so she should call me back. I didn't get a call back. I did, however, get an email in which she apologized for not calling back, that she was very busy, but that she didn't think we'd really hit it off that night and probably shouldn't go out again.
And that's where I left it. Clearly, we must have hit it off, since we spent 3 hours on a first date drinking wine and making out. My drunken behavior must have been more egregious than I remember, which again, is an argument for getting a voice recorder immediately and carrying it with me at all times. Oh well. At least I showed up ****housed to a first date - raise your hand if you've done that lately? Thought so. If you feel like going on a date that has little potential to go well but will be guaranteed to be fun for you, I highly recommend you try it.
But only if you either invite me to watch from a distance, or bring a voice recorder.
Share
Thursday, January 29, 2009 at 2:58pm | Edit Note | Delete
One of the things I am known for is occasionally - and if by "occasionally", I actually mean "constantly" - drinking. Wait, you knew that. OK, well I also often start drinking pretty early in the day. This doesn't necessarily mean I'm getting drunk at 9am, although you've gotta admit that sounds like something you'd like to try at least once. No, often times this simply means a couple of beers with lunch around 11:00am, followed by a couple of beers after. Granted, sometimes this turns into "a couple of shots after", which of course leads into a fun-filled day and more than likely, a story for you, the fortunate reader. Most of the time, though, I keep it under control, because I'm not actually an alcoholic. Those *******s are quitters who go to meetings.
This was not one of those times.
About two weeks ago, I woke up abnormally early on a Friday, maybe around 8:30am. I was off work that day, and had drank heavily the night before, so this confused me. Once I'm up, though, I'm usually up for the day, so I got my morning started. Showered, got dressed, ran a couple of errands, and by that point, it was approaching lunchtime. Well, approaching 10:30, which is good enough for my purposes. I headed up to BJs, which really does have outstanding food. If you want a deep dish pizza in Austin, this place has some of the best, but really, for a chain restaurant, almost everything is pretty good. They have pretty good microbrews, too.
I'm not feeling too excited about beer - yet - so I decide to start with liquor. Since it's still, technically, the morning, juice seems appropriate, so I settle on Kettle One and OJ. Lesser vodkas like Absolut and Smirnoff, which rightly belong in the well of any self-respecting bar, can kiss my ass. I spot my favorite bartender so I move my party up to the bar, order some food, and settle in. This guy starts feeding me drinks like he's planning on date raping me, and I start drinking them like I'm hoping he will. In between drinks we're shooting the **** a little bit, and I casually mention that I have a date later that night.
Forgot to mention that, did I? Let me explain. A week or so ago, I'd met a girl (who was, shockingly enough, my age). We hit it off, she gave me her number, and a few days later I called her and invited her out to meet me at a wine bar later that week. On Friday, in fact. Was it a good idea for me to start drinking at 10:30am on that Friday? Well, I'll leave it to you, the discriminating reader, to decide, but in my defense, I wasn't planning on getting drunk. Actually, that's bull****. There I go, lying again. It was actually my plan all along to show up to this date drunk. The excuse I gave people for this was that I wanted her to see me at my potential worst on the first date, that way, if she stuck around, I wouldn't worry about shocking her. Now, that excuse actually makes sense, but the real reason is this: I ****ing wanted to. I wanted to show up completely ****faced on a first date to see what happened, and the reason is very simple. If I don't find situations like that in which to put myself, how do you expect me to get new material? Anyway, this had nothing to do with the girl - she wasn't annoying, ugly, fat, a *****, or anything else that would make me want to **** with her. It was just a case of Manny being Manny (and if you're not a baseball fan and don't get the reference, I'm not explaining it).
Anyway, back to BJs. Trace - the bartender - expressed a bit of surprise that I'm drinking this heavily. It's tough to blame him for that, although when I fed him the bull**** excuse, he seemed to buy it. Guess he doesn't know me very well. I end up hanging out for a couple more hours, do several shots - in this case, straight chilled Stoli, another one of my favorite vodkas - read the paper, do the crossword puzzle, and just generally hang out. Around 3pm I close out my surprisingly light tab - Trace felt bad for forgetting to buy me a Christmas present, apparently - and walked to my next stop, Applebees.
As usual at this time of day, the place was pretty much empty. I decide to continue drinking screwdrivers, because even though the OJ does dilute the alcohol, they taste pretty damn good. Unfortunately, there is no Kettle One to be had at Applebees, so I settle on something else - but at this point, I don't think I would have noticed the difference, anyway. A few minutes later, my good friend TheVirgin walks in. I call her that because, predictably enough, she does not hook up. She's a really good friend of mine, though - probably one of my only female friends, in fact. I should actually do a story on her, because some of the **** that comes out of her mouth is pretty unbelievable, especially when she gets drunk.
But I digress. TheVirgin came in, sat down at the bar with me and ordered some food - apparently she had to go back to work. She ate, we bull****ted briefly, and she left with a promise to return by 5 or 5:30. Given that I told her about my date that night and my plan for it, I think she wanted to see what kind of shape I would be in when I actually went on the date. I continued to drink, chatting with the bartender and whomever came in and sat down. Of course, I continued drinking, alternating screwdrivers and shots. Unfortunately, eventually drinking catches up even to me. By 5:00, I have no clue how much I'd had to drink, since let's face it - only a ***** counts. It had to be in the neighborhood of 8 or 9 vodka shots and a larger number of screwdrivers.
TheVirgin walks back in, and I can barely sit upright. She saw my state, and correctly decided that if I continued to drink, there is no way I would make it downtown. She manages to convince me of this, and I switch to black coffee and iced water. Now, let's stop right here for a second. Normally, I'd keep drinking and not switch to something non-alcoholic. In this case, though, I actually did want to make it downtown for my date. So, over the next hour and a half I drank black coffee like a caffeine addict (actually, I am a caffeine addict. Farfetched, I know). Another friend of mine shows up and tries to dissuade me from going out. Predictably, he failed.
Around 6:30, I am relatively sober, if by "relatively sober" I mean relative to my state of inebriation at 5:30. I stagger out of Applebees, stumble into a cab, and manage to slur my destination - Cork wine bar - to the cab driver. I had a large To Go cup full of coffee, and sipped on that as I continued to sober up on the way.
Or at least, I imagine that's what happened, since I literally have a blank spot in time between around 5pm and the time the cab dropped me off at Cork. All I know is that I ended up at the wine bar. My date was running late, so I grabbed a spot at the bar, ordered a glass of wine, and waited. She showed up a few minutes later. Now, before we get into the date, I think it's important to note that I do a VERY good job of "holding it together" when I need to. I've talked my way out of Public Intox arrests, I've talked the police out of arresting a friend for getting into a fight on 6th St, I've talked bartenders into not cutting me off, and you can be damn sure I'm capable of acting sober on a date. The one thing I'm not able to do is watch what I say - I literally have NO brain-to-mouth filter, and will say whatever pops into my head.
Some choice samples of conversation from the night:
Me: "So, you're a natural red head, or what?
Her: "Natural, why?"
Me: "Just curious - you know what they say about redheads."
Her: "What, that we're crazy and have tempers?"
Me: "No, that you're really good in bed."
Her: "...well, maybe."
Me: (after talking about what we do, and with evident disappointment) "So you're a lawyer."
Her: "Yes"
Me: "I dated a lawyer once."
Her: "Really?"
Me: "Yes. She was an alcoholic ***** who cheated on me. Also, she was bipolar. Are you bipolar?"
Me: (after a pause in conversation, in which she was sitting close and staring at me) "You look like you're about to kiss me."
Her: "You want me to kiss you?"
Me: "Yes."
Her: (kisses me)
And so on, and so forth. Those are the three that I remember, but I'm sure there are more. That's why I really need a voice recorder, because I guarantee you, if I could have recorded our conversation - which we had over the course of almost three bottles of wine - and played it back for my friends, we would have laughed our asses off and probably put it up on Youtube, where I would have become famous.
In any case, we managed to hang out at the bar until probably 10:30 or 11:00. I'm sure she could tell I'd been drinking - in fact, I'm sure I told her so. But if she was offended, she must have had a weird way of showing it, considering the fact that we made out at the bar, outside of the bar, and at her car when I walked back with her. Unfortunately, this story doesn't end with me getting laid. She had told me before hand (as in, when I called her the first time to invite her out) that she had an early day on Saturday so we'd have to make it an early night. Having sex wasn't even my goal for the night - my goal was to go to, and make it through, a first date while ****faced. End result? David 1, Appropriate Behavior 0.
Actually, that wasn't the end of the night. No, I decided it would be a good idea to go play poker at a local card room. I grabbed a cab, had it take me to the game, where I'm sure everyone was excited to see me. They were right to be excited, as this night ended up costing me more than a couple of bar tabs, and that's putting it mildly.
The sad, but not unexpected, postscript to the story is this: I called the girl a couple of days later. She didn't pick up, so I left her a message basically saying I'd had a good time and was free on x day, so she should call me back. I didn't get a call back. I did, however, get an email in which she apologized for not calling back, that she was very busy, but that she didn't think we'd really hit it off that night and probably shouldn't go out again.
And that's where I left it. Clearly, we must have hit it off, since we spent 3 hours on a first date drinking wine and making out. My drunken behavior must have been more egregious than I remember, which again, is an argument for getting a voice recorder immediately and carrying it with me at all times. Oh well. At least I showed up ****housed to a first date - raise your hand if you've done that lately? Thought so. If you feel like going on a date that has little potential to go well but will be guaranteed to be fun for you, I highly recommend you try it.
But only if you either invite me to watch from a distance, or bring a voice recorder.
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