“Help! Is My Date Ashamed to Date a Sober Girl?”
How to know if you’re a bad sober date, eek!
Happy Hump Day! I’m Tawny, an advice columnist better known as “The Sober Sexpert” and author of Dry Humping: A Guide to Dating, Relating, and Hooking Up Without the Booze. I’m here to empower you to find your *intrinsic* courage without booze—regardless of your relationship status—one date at a time.
What’s in This Issue
Book tour details—come meet me IRL!
Expert advice from two therapists, Rachel Wright, MA, LMFT, and Lynn Macarin-Mara, LCSW
Book recommendations
Writing prompts
Booze-free date ideas
I have two events this week! Tonight’s event is about queerness and tarot while Sunday’s event is about grief. Click the link below to learn all the deets about my book tour.
Dear Tawny,
I’m a straight woman who struggles when I go on dates with people who drink. Often, I find myself feeling bad if we’re in a bar or at a restaurant and my date is drinking but I’m not.
Don’t get me wrong; I have no desire to actually drink, but I still find myself feeling awkward. Honestly, I tend to worry that the guy I’m with is feeling judged for his own drinking or, even worse, feeling ashamed about the drinking. How do I make my date not feel shameful in these situations? I don’t want to be a bad date!
Help,
Bad Sober Date
Hey BSD. Sending you a big hug. IDK why, but it just feels like you could use a hug. I totally relate to the awkward feeling you’re describing. I don’t want to discredit your feelings, yet I also wonder if your dates are actually feeling ashamed or judged or if that might be something you’re feeling for them.
I did this a lot in my early sobriety. (You can read all my cringe-worthy, early blogs here.) I was so used to being the life of the party that I thought it was my responsibility to fill awkward silences. Other coping mechanisms I learned in childhood popped up in my dating life, too.
Becoming aware of those behaviors also helped me identify the moments that trigger them. I had to remind myself that I was on a date. A DATE! Not filling in as someone’s therapist or life coach. I sat in those noisy coffee shops to see if that person was interesting enough to see them again and again. I was on this date because I hoped to find someone I wanted to spend more time with, maybe even build a life together. (Hint: I did!)
Those realizations also helped me remember the reasons I’m not on a date:
To take care of someone physically or emotionally
To talk to someone else about their drinking habits
To count my date’s drinks
To try and “fix” them
“You can even state, if you’re comfortable, that you’re not drinking and you feel a little awkward about it because you don’t want your date to feel any ick around drinking themselves (if that’s true).” - Rachel Wright, LMFT
Doing codependency work helped me get over my default behavior of putting everyone’s feelings—which included my worries about feelings the person in front of me may not even have—before my own. I also woke up to the fact that a lot of my anticipatory feelings were really just me projecting my anxieties on others. Essentially, I was stressing out over fake news.
Women, especially cishet women who date men, are socially conditioned to be the caretakers, carrying a great deal of emotional labor in relationships (more resources on this subject below). It sounds like you’re already stepping into this caretaking role before even entering a relationship, worrying about your date’s feelings before establishing a true emotional connection where it’s appropriate for them to be worried about your feelings, too. This can set you on a path toward an unbalanced relationship where one person’s feelings are prioritized over another’s.
Remember: You are not your date’s therapist or life coach. You gotta get your emotional needs met, too, girl!
I won’t tell you not to worry about what people think because that’s pointless advice. Most of us care what other people think. Instead, I’ll ask you to decide whose opinion actually *matters* and why. Seriously, write it down using the prompts below.
Keep reading for expert insight on this question about being a “bad sober date,” prompts to help you differentiate between the opinion of someone who matters and a casual acquaintance (or first date!), and some reading recs if you want to explore codependency further.
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