Third Time Unlucky

I am mildly hungover this morning, thanks to a glass of white wine, a couple of glasses of red wine and what I hope was a rum and diet Coke, but may well have been the full fat kind.

It was my third date with Andrew, and it wasn’t the sort of evening worth a hangover.

Still, I’m going to be grateful that I didn’t binge, because that’s very well the evening it could have turned into. There is nothing that sets me off quite like an evening spent struggling to connect with someone, particularly if there is alcohol involved.

And sure enough, as Andrew and I went our separate ways at Waterloo – after an awkward goodbye where he said “Not to be naff, but I’ll email you” -- I felt the familiar urge to stuff myself. Somehow, I didn’t.

This morning at 9 am an email from him arrived, saying he didn’t see this “working out on the dating front.” Frankly, I didn’t either, but still I feel slightly depressed by the whole thing.

* * *

Yesterday when I picked up my tub of body lotion I noticed there were traces of peanut butter on the lid.

That would be peanut butter from the binge I had on the fourth of July, at my best friend’s house.

I cringed a bit just remembering it: Ducking into my room to dip leftover hamburger buns into a jar of peanut butter while alternately popping back out to the living room where we were watching a movie and bowling on the Wii Fit. I also ate all the snacks I’d been carrying with me (mostly cereal bars, I think, judging from the wrappers I found the next morning). Yes, I really can binge on just about anything, although to be fair, I probably wouldn’t have done that sort of desperate foraging if I hadn’t been drinking.

The next day, I woke up and dreaded any comments she might make about how I’d behaved the night before. Had she noticed? She didn’t say.

I felt exhausted and over-full and head-full-of-cotton-wool, a combination of food and alcohol hangover. I was upset with myself mostly because I knew I’d be low-energy all day, and not particularly capable of concentrating on conversation with M., my best friend, whom I hadn’t seen for a year and a half. I debated whether to say anything, to explain why I might seem distracted. (And why her hamburger buns and peanut butter were missing.)

I wavered, and then – late in the afternoon, walking in the park – I confessed.
“I thought something might be going on,” she said. “I know you. But if that wasn’t what you were doing I didn’t want you to be embarrassed.”

Then she said, unprompted: “I don’t think [my boyfriend] noticed, if you’re worried about that.”