I went to a birthday party with my ex-girlfriend once, put on by one of her "church" friends. Her church friend was somewhere around our age, which was 23 at the time.
Her church friend was as young as we were but in a different world. She had a professional job, she was about to buy a house, she dressed in nice outfits and had a sensible haircut, she took pains not to curse, she had two parents that lived together nearby that she saw every week, she thought about her relationship with God, she knew how to budget her monthly expenses, she spoke in clear and concise sentences that had a beginning, middle and end.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not setting her up to be the butt of a joke or defining her as the other that I stood in opposition to or even ascribing to her a saintly holiness in order to take away her humanity.
Many of her qualities I found admirable, some I had then, some I have now, some weren't for me, and others would always be out of reach. She also had her own struggles. She had never been in a serious relationship and I'm sure had been let down at times by the timid nature of smart awkward nerds that made up the core of her friends. She was the member of her group that spent a year at Silicon Valley after college but didn't land a trophy job at Google or an exciting start-up. She went back to small town Washington to be close to her family and comfortable.
There was no alcohol served at her birthday party. No six packs of microbrews, no bottles of three dollar wine, no nice bottle of aged whiskey surrounded by a random assortment of cheap liqueurs. In my adult life, I don't think I've ever gone to a party that didn't serve alcohol where that wasn't on the mission statement.
We didn't bring any alcohol ourselves, although that was probably more because of our lack of money than a shared understanding nobody would be wanting any.
The party was made up of mostly other young people our age in the tech sector, who all had professional jobs. I don't know if any of them drank on days when they weren't going to birthday parties, but nobody expressed much interest or surprise at the absence of alcohol. Clearly, nobody had wanted to bring their own.
I was out of work, freshly done with college and unsure of what my future held or what I wanted it to hold. I was confused as to why I was still in the tiny college town that suddenly couldn't offer me anything anymore. I had unrealistic expectations for my first time searching for a "real" or "serious" job in my adult life that weren't matching up with the reality I expected. I suddenly found myself surrounded by a group of my peers that had all had those expectations met.
I played some kind of geometry-based board game with a couple guys that worked for Google that politely didn't say anything after the game ended and I lost very badly. I politely wouldn't have said anything, either, if I was in their position.
By the end of the party, I felt like a loose bundle of exposed wires, occasionally rubbing together and sparking. It was the first time I felt the weight of impossibility at the thought of life without alcohol, at least as an aid in social situations.
I was never what anyone would consider a heavy drinker before that day, and only at sporadic moments after. I didn't feel any kind of relationship with alcohol all throughout college, and it was only an habitual punctuation at the end of a day for years after.
These days I have a very complex relationship with alcohol. Far from a "problem drunk" or a "blackout drunk" or any kind of drunk at all, I only understand the comfort I have around other people who have a very complex relationship with alcohol as well and know the importance of that problematic friendship.
1 окт 2024
