I ain't drunk, I swear

I hate a lot of things. I can't walk from one place to another without thinking about at least a dozen things or people that I hate. Then I hate myself for being so hateful. I literally hate my own hate. I project my hate outward and it comes back and smacks me in my own face. My hate would be like a metaphorical boomerang if it weren't for the fact that boomerangs never fucking work and never goddamn come back to you like they're supposed to, and it doesn't matter anyway because I live in a major metropolitan area so where the fuck am I going to find enough space to safely play with a boomerang? Fuck I hate boomerangs.

So with that in mind, I hope you don't take it lightly when I say that the one thing I hate more than anything else in this whole wide world is being reminded of stupid and embarrassing shit I said or did while drunk. Most of the time when I drink in a social situation, I don't do anything terribly bad. Maybe I'll make one inappropriate joke, or maybe I'll tell a girl that I think she's hot and regret divulging that, but we aren't talking about anything akin to social suicide. I'm guaranteed to do at least one stupid thing, but odds are nobody will care because my offense was incredibly minor, and somebody else drunker than me did something way worse.

However, there are times when I do truly horrible things. A few times in my life I did something so bad while drunk that to this day I still can't look certain people in the eye. One morning I woke up covered in Steve McNair's blood. And that wasn't the first time I woke up with evidence that I had murdered a former football great. True story: thanks to my alcohol use, I've killed more retired football players than diabetes. And it's because of those situations that whenever I drink in a social situation, I spend the entire next morning feeling an emotional cocktail of fear, shame, and dread. I just know the next time I see that group of people I'm going to be bombarded with all kinds of crazy, emotionally pathetic shit I did last night that I don't even remember. The few times I pieced together what happened during a blackout-fueled rampage and just a general discomfort with being seen in a state where I'm not in complete control make me genuinely scared of having so much as a six-pack even if it's stretched out over a long night.

For that reason I get extremely defensive when I'm accused of being wasted when I'm not. Last week somebody at work threw a pool party. Over the course of the whole night I had six beers. Toward the end, we were all watching a video. Somebody commented that one of the guys in the video was cute, so I instantly replied by saying something to the effect of, "Oh sure. I know I'd fuck him."

Now, anyone who knows me well knows that I say this kind of shit when I'm sober all the time, but a vast majority of people in the room didn't know me very well, and they responded with confusion, indifference, or accusing me of being wasted. Of course I began insisting that I wasn't wasted, and that never really works since by the time everyone in the room thinks you're hammered, you're going to have a really hard time convincing them otherwise, especially if you have a beer in your hand at the time. Of course after falling asleep I spent the whole morning terrified like always, and when I got to work I found out that somebody did something way worse than I did and almost nobody cared about what I did, like always.

However, I was confronted by the guy who hosted the party about my "I know I'd fuck him" comment, but this time other people who knew me well were present and vouched for me when I said that I make comments like that while sober all the time. I felt vindicated. I said something so completely stupid, embarrassing, and horribly inappropriate for the situation that somebody felt the need to confront me about it, but goddamit, I said it because I wanted to, not because alcohol made me. I didn't pathetically fall victim to alcohol. I'm this crass, rude, and off-putting all by myself. FOR SOME REASON I THINK THIS IS A VICTORY!!! WAHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!