Although Americans (and especially Philadelphians) like to laugh at, mock and dismiss those 'Jersey Shore' folks from across the pond as "a thing," I can't help but find it a tad bit ironic that we laugh at behaviors we all embrace and demonstrate.
The premise of the show revolves around hook-ups and drinking, two things that, more often than not, go hand-in-hand. We drink to hook-up, and we hook-up to drink. And what happens when a relationship goes down the rabbit hole? We head to the nearest karaoke bar to drunkenly sing our struggles away.
A cocktail a day probably does take the pain away (we've all been there), but there appears to be an unhealthy obsession in today's society with using alcohol as a crutch for when things go horribly wrong with our lives - especially with dating. I'm all for using the firewater to kill the nerves on an awkward first date, but a backwards mentality has managed to take hold on what role alcohol plays in forming relationships.
The excuse many will gladly use for consuming mass amounts of alcohol for dating and sex-related purposes is that it uninhibits them and breaks down barriers to reveal their "true selves." But one has to wonder: if you're drinking to force yourself into a comfort zone, how "natural" is that?
I'm not so naive (or prudish) as to downplay alcohol and preach against it; Prohibition was certainly demonstration enough that people don't just desire alcohol, they need it. However, this uncanny fascination with intoxication needs to reach a peak at one point or another; using alcohol as a scapegoat doesn't feed a healthy relationship anymore than it nourishes your liver.
Myself being slightly inebriated, I recently observed a young man on the street taunting a group of women as I waited for the Sketch Mobile (aka the "Night Owl") to take me home. He gave them an obvious up-down gaze, and continued to talk to them (or at them, rather) with a tone in his voice that screamed, "I'm drunk, horny, and entitled to your vagina." It was an eye-rolling reminder of the role this liquid courage plays in how our sexual selves work.
When I finally took a seat on the bus, I sat down across from a man and woman who clearly had just come from a party together, but were also very apparently not in a relationship. The man continued to comment on how drunk she was, which was his own code for, "You're drunk; that means it's okay to sleep with me tonight." Thankfully, the girl wasn't having it and clarified that she was feeling very sober, which was her code for, "Put your dick back in your pants."
Yet in these situations, who/what is really to blame for when things go sour? There is absolutely nothing justifiable about your actions just because you took a few too many shots and made an abnormally bad decision. Consider this: if your bad decisions couldn't be excused by alcohol in a work environment, why would that be any less true in a personal setting?
By all means, continue to drink, hook-up, and embark on plastered adventures. But when the time comes in your life to "settle down" and look more closely for "the one," know better than to pre-game before your date or talk in-depth about your party self. Nothing is more unattractive than a drunk that doesn't know he/she is a drunk.
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