this is why dating has become orders of magnitude more difficult for me after i quit drinking. my entire strategy was drinking enough to drown out “what if she thinks I’m being creepy, what if she’s mean, what if i say something stupid and get ostracized” until i could finally hear a tiny, slurred voice saying “lol wouldn’t it be funny if you talked to that girl you think is pretty and it turns out she can tolerate your presence” enough to go talk to the girl
but now i am 31 and my cells have decided making enough alcohol dehydrogenase is too much of a hassle and i have decided being hungover is too much of a hassle, so now i just drink soda in the lesbian bar trying to look available but not pathetic (it’s not working)
Ope, yeah. I’m the same age and currently facing the increasing brutality of hangovers pushing me to be more responsible with my drinking. It hasn’t yet hit the point of not being able to take advantage of the liquid courage to talk to people. Fortunately I do have a sober trick from my crippling anxiety days of psyching myself up to just cross the point where it’s more awkward to stop. It’s weird to think I was stone sober when I tried a stupid line on my now wife lol.
And yeah I think the big trick is to learn to casually chat with anyone and to learn to flirt. The first gets you comfortable and the second lets you figure out if someone is interested. I’ll admit I rarely make moves on someone because she looks available, but because she looks interesting or she’s been interesting in conversation.
Yep! It’s very similar because I didn’t really understand the difference between my anxiety and executive dysfunction when I was a teenager figuring out how to cope with them both.
this is why dating has become orders of magnitude more difficult for me after i quit drinking. my entire strategy was drinking enough to drown out “what if she thinks I’m being creepy, what if she’s mean, what if i say something stupid and get ostracized” until i could finally hear a tiny, slurred voice saying “lol wouldn’t it be funny if you talked to that girl you think is pretty and it turns out she can tolerate your presence” enough to go talk to the girl
but now i am 31 and my cells have decided making enough alcohol dehydrogenase is too much of a hassle and i have decided being hungover is too much of a hassle, so now i just drink soda in the lesbian bar trying to look available but not pathetic (it’s not working)
Ope, yeah. I’m the same age and currently facing the increasing brutality of hangovers pushing me to be more responsible with my drinking. It hasn’t yet hit the point of not being able to take advantage of the liquid courage to talk to people. Fortunately I do have a sober trick from my crippling anxiety days of psyching myself up to just cross the point where it’s more awkward to stop. It’s weird to think I was stone sober when I tried a stupid line on my now wife lol.
And yeah I think the big trick is to learn to casually chat with anyone and to learn to flirt. The first gets you comfortable and the second lets you figure out if someone is interested. I’ll admit I rarely make moves on someone because she looks available, but because she looks interesting or she’s been interesting in conversation.
this feels related to my executive function trick of “go do it for 5 minutes and then you can stop if you want” (i rarely stop after 5 min)
so i might try this. ty <3
Yep! It’s very similar because I didn’t really understand the difference between my anxiety and executive dysfunction when I was a teenager figuring out how to cope with them both.
Good luck!