alcohol ban in effect

My boyfriend and I decided to ban alcohol for a week or so. That means no beer, wine, or going out to the bars for a little while.

This was actually his idea a few days ago. We tend to enjoy drinking and getting our buzz on. From my recent blogs, it would seem that alcohol and bars causes us nothing but problems, whether one of us gets a bit jealous of something or a full-scale fist fight erupts (not between us of course, but with other people). I, of course, jumped at the idea to do things other than go out to drink.

We went out Wednesday night and had several drinks with his best friend, the one who was present during the whole jealous-rage face-scratching event a couple weeks ago. We only went to a straight bar, but I joked around a lot with my bf in front of his friend and, although my boyfriend knew I was just screwing around and kidding, his best friend may not have and kind of did the whole throwing-up-of-the-hands-and-walking-away thing, trying to leave us to our "argument", which it most certainly was not. We ended up talking about it, a bit drunkenly, that night when we got back home. Everything was resolved and we didn't fight, but both of us were a bit uneasy about the situation. Alcohol takes us there quite often.

He turned to me the next night and said, "Let's not drink for a week." I said okay, not even questioning why. I don't care, I don't need to drink. I just enjoy it, I like getting a buzz. I'm not a big drinker at all; I don't drink at home, or by myself, unless we're pre-gaming a bit together before a night out.

He added: "I want to get to know you completely sober. No alcohol. We don't need to go to the bars for a week, let's just hang out together, me and you." This little statement made me so happy. I suggested board games. He screamed, "Scattagories!" (or whatever its called). Renting movies. We talked about walks outside around the city, saving money, and even going on a trip somewhere. Camping? Pittsburgh? New York for New Year's Eve? Sure! Why not!

I've met a lot of different types of guys in my lifetime. My boyfriend may be younger than I but he, strangely enough, is more mature, sensible, down-to-earth, and level headed than any "man" I've ever known. You would think a 21 year old would be concerned with nothing but drinking, partying, and just having fun, but he is so much deeper than that.

I bought a coffeemaker and I've been getting in the habit of making a pot when we get up in the morning. This morning, even though we didn't have much time to talk before we had to get to work, we sat at the kitchen table and just talked over coffee. He told me tonight that he's looking forward to the future when we'll have coffee talk every morning.

Last night, we hung out, listened to music and made fun of each others tastes, shuffling through my iTunes library. We went to the video store and browsed for what was probably 45 minutes and actually learned a lot about each other just discussing movies and seeing what each of us were looking at and interested in. Tonight, we skipped the bar--imagine that, on a Saturday night after a long day at work for both of us! We talked about school, what classes we are taking next semester, and the professors that we've had (even checking ratemyprofessor.com and laughing together over all the stories written there). Don't let me fool you; we've had so many conversations together about any godforsaken thing that pops into our minds, but this time, its completely sober. Its completely real. It feels really good to know that someone wants to get to know me as much as I want to get to know him.

*sigh*