How much should you be drinking on a first date? What can go wrong?
Here's five questions to answer before you get drunk on your first date, then you can continue to stare blankly at the wine list.
What is this date for? You're trying to gauge whether you want to long-term bang this person or short-term let them hang out with you. They'll be thinking the same. How much fun are you having? Why do you like them? Were they hot before you drank all that tequila?
Do you even like drinking? If you're not a drinker, drinking until you can't feel the fear is going to punish you big time. You're going to be nervous but it's fun to be nervous. The reason you don't get nervous about washing the dishes is because it's rubbish. While drinking is associated with being "good fun", it is also associated with crying on the street. Don't over compensate.
What if you CAN handle your booze? If you genuinely can, why the hell not? And listen, if your date makes you feel like you're not conforming to "how a woman should behave" (uh, vom) flip the table and swagger out of there like Liam Gallagher in the Nineties. In saying that, if you're knocking back doubles and already talking about what fences you can climb over on the way home, you might have a pretty sweet life together. Personally, I've drunkenly tried to start cheese-flavoured milkshake businesses with most of my dates. None of them have been clever enough to take it up. Idiots.
What if he's trying to get you drunk? Hmmm. Okay, if he's trying to calm nerves, that's fine. He'll be nervous too and he'll be worried about whether or not you think he's fun enough. If he's trying to get you drunk so you'll shag him, he is and always will be the worst kind of creep and this scumbag isn't worth saying another word to. Seriously, you're not like one of those weirdo nameless drunk girls in How I Met Your Mother.
What if I get hammered and make a tool of myself? You can always rectify it. Once,I ended up drinking so much on a first date, I had a surprise sick attack in his bed while he was in the loo. I stripped the bed, not considering he would come back five minutes later and see his Egyptian cotton sheets stuffed in my handbag covered in pieces of regurgitated sushi. We had an awkward laugh and I said I'd wash them. But instead, I threw the bedding into a skip and took him some tasteless satin leopard skin covers as a peace offering. We ended up living together for three years. The animal print covers however, only lasted one night.