Alcohol and online dating need each other like the internet needs porn. Tinder involves so much work: you spend weeks talking to a bunch of potentials before you finally go on a date with the one that annoys you the least; you spend days fantasizing that this could be the guy with whom your future kids will eventually spend their weekend; and then you finally meet and he’s wearing marinara-stained red pants, and you can’t have kids with a man who wears red pants.
But a few drinks can very quickly paper over the fact you and Mr Red Pants have nothing in common, zero chemistry and that the only thing keeping the conversation going is the promise of being bought drinks and that someone else will pay for the cab home.
A drop of self loathing and a brisk morning walk is how some of us finish our Tinder dates. However, I’m a changed woman, as I’ve now been sober for nine months. Which is great on one hand, but shit on the other, as sobriety has eradicated my only form of exercise.
When most folks retire one vice, they need to develop a new hobby to take its place, and I was counting on Tinder and my previous dating proclivities to see me through the transition – if I’m honest. Needless to say, this carefully laid plan did not result in getting me laid, much to my annoyance. Sober dating sucks, and not in a sexy way. Doing Tinder is a nightmare without alcohol. It’s like the the sea without fish, a Kardashian without booty, America without proper healthcare... oh, wait.
Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of benefits that come with sober choices, a sober attitude and a sober bank balance, but dating is so not one of them. Tinder without alcohol is basically two people staring at each other over a table silently acknowledging that they’d rather be anywhere else and wanting the earth to spontaneously open up and swallow them.
We all have an idea of the types of people we want to get naked with, and I went through a very brief period of thinking a sober man would be my new ideal match now that I’m ‘reformed’. I’d definitely not gone out with a ‘sober person’ before. But since being on the ol’ wagon, I’ve found out there are two distinct types of sober man. Ones, who for them, drinking and doing drugs was an issue and who are constantly on the precipice of driving back down sauce street with you trapped in the passenger seat. Or ones who have never drunk, even in moderation, which means they’re pretty fucking boring; they’re the ones to whom ‘doggy style’ would be in neither their musical nor sexual repertoire. Based on my very recent experience, he is the type that would take you on a dog walk for a first date and then ask you back to his flat to ‘hang’. But instead of this being a sober person code for making sweet, sweaty love all afternoon, it actually means ‘come back to my flat to watch the dog chase a plastic toy around the living room for two hours’. Let’s say crawling around a stranger’s living room on all fours has never been so awkward.
As a sober girl, I’m not there to get drunk, so my new experience involves a lot of waiting around listening to filler conversation about why Morrissey/Bill Hicks/Louis CK is a genius. All the while his sexual stock is plummeting, as the guy across the table from me is getting drunker and less able to do the job in hand. There’s nothing you can do to salvage the situation – I now know how the Greeks felt watching their economy go down the drain.
Actually being able to remember shit that happens during a night out the next morning is another annoying side effect of turning sober. I’ve turned into some kind of phone locating service for mates that were hammered the night before, and the satisfaction of locking the memory of who and what you did the night before in a ‘blackout’ cupboard no longer exists. You fully remember the sketchy porn moves, the lack of true connection, the stench of a person that’s slept on booze and cigarettes breathing in your face and, of course, the blatant awkwardness and disappointment of unmet, already low expectations. You come to the conclusion that you had a lot of truly awful sex when you were drinking – a realization that alone has been enough to put me off one night stands forever.
Now if you’re reading this and we did, you know, once... I’m totally not talking about you. You were amazing. I just can’t keep meeting men via Tinder or in bars anymore. And while sobriety has been enlightening, more wholesome and all that good stuff, I feel like I’ve lost my superpowers, like I’m Superman without the flying bit. But, at the same time, I’m beginning to feel quite good about cutting out Tinder’s addictive finger swiping behavior. It does mean I’m getting less action (so the finger swiping has been transferred elsewhere) but I’m in a much healthier place, and sobriety has given me my standards back. Which is a shame, because if I’d met you nine months ago, we’d be making beautiful music together.
