How do you imagine your first date? Usually, it is about dinner and wine, or meeting over a few cocktails. Alcohol is used as an elixir, which will help two strangers relax, quickly get closer, and get to know each other better. However, often it acts just the opposite: it interferes with an adequate assessment of a person as well as showing yourself real, and sometimes it pushes for rash acts. Let’s find out why drinking on a first date is a bad idea.
1. You want to make sure that you read their signals correctly
Alcohol can give you a sense of false confidence and provoke your wishful thinking. Alcohol dulls intuition and empathy, which are especially important when you meet a person for the first time. As a result, you can leave the date without doubting that the person is excited about you, even though they were hinting you for the whole evening that your first meeting would be the last. Or everything can be even worse, and you will not notice some obvious red flags such as attempts to manipulate you or disrespect. If a date for you is not just a way to have fun in the evening but also a chance to find a serious romantic relationship, leave yourself the opportunity to think soberly and perceive what is happening adequately. It is about the ultimate guide on how to get a second date.
2. You want them to know the real you
The belief that alcohol helps a person be sincere and show “their true self” is only partially true. Drinking makes people more relaxed, bold, and it pushes to reckless actions, but this does not mean that a drunk person behaves as they would like but did not dare, being sober. Someone, being drunk begins to chat quickly and a lot, someone wants to take risks or have inappropriate conversations with a stranger. However, all this does not show your true personality at least because you do not behave like that most of the time, being sober. The proverb, “What soberness conceals, drunkenness reveals” is also dubious wisdom because sometimes people begin to do such stupid things because of alcohol that they don’t usually even think about. It is time to stop treating alcohol as a truth serum because it does not always work that way.
3. You want to be sure that you really like this person
Alcohol makes it difficult to adequately perceive not only the red flags but also your true feelings. After a few glasses of wine, almost any person seems a little nicer than they are. It is extremely easy to please a drunk person: the jokes seem funnier, the food tastes better, and the interlocutor looks prettier. Unfortunately, this effect evaporates with alcohol. So, before drinking together, it would be nice to make sure that this person is pleasant to you even when you are both sober.
4. When you are intoxicated with alcohol, you can have a one-night stand
This is one of the most dangerous consequences of drinking on a date with a stranger. Even if you don’t get drunk to the point of unconsciousness, you can regret your decision to have a one-night stand in the morning as soon as you realize that you were controlled only by alcohol. Besides, often people do something reckless and “turn off” their instinct for self-preservation. It’s only up to you to decide whether it’s a good idea to end your first date in such a way, but both of you should do it consciously.
5. Your confidence should not depend on the consumption of alcohol
It is a bad idea to drink to work up the courage. This is a temporary measure that can involve unpleasant consequences. Confidence should not depend on alcohol, and you can’t drink every time you meet the person, so it means that the first awkward sober date will take place anyway, just later than it could. There are much more effective and healthy ways to add confidence to a meeting with a person you like.
6. You should know whether they can be open and honest without drinking
If it’s important for you to date a person who can speak openly and honestly about their feelings and themselves, you are unlikely to be glad to date the one who always needs alcohol for honesty. It will be sad to discover on a second date that an interesting, sociable, sincere person is actually a screwed-up and insecure one. So, the best thing you can do is to refuse alcohol at all or at least limit yourself to one glass of wine. Thus, you can be sure your first date was great.