AKA not sit in the corner nursing a tonic with a face like Hurricane Sandy.
The good news is if you have genuinely fallen out of love with alcohol then enjoying a party sober is pretty straightforward. Firstly, you recognise it’s only about 3 to 5 hours out of your life, and you can survive anything for 3 to 5 hours and secondly you can set it up as a fun challenge – to get to know people deeply, to bring out the best in people, to be the craziest dancer on the dance floor etc, despite having nothing but tonic water in the tank. Don’t they say that if you can dance sober you have pretty much cracked the secret to life? Because it means you realliy don’t give a fuck?
I’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news is unless you’ve legit fallen out of love with alcohol, you’re never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever going to be able to enjoy a party sober. You’re going to see everyone getting sloshed and talking loudly and dancing and appearing to have a wonderful time and resentment is going to seep out of your every pore.
It’s funny how we think of socialising sober as this massive, scary monster but it’s kinda crazy when you think about it. We all spend tons of time during the week socialising without a drop of booze in our systems, like when we’re chatting to people we run into in the supermarket for example. We’re not all bored and eggy in that scenario, and we have a perfectly nice chat, leave feeling good and move on with our day. There’s no reason it should be any different at a party.
There are a couple of provisos however.
1 Don’t tell people at the party you’re not drinking (unless you have to). Try to avoid wearing the label “I am sober”. If you have to share this information just put it down to having a big day tomorrow that you need to be clear headed for (say it’s something work related). The reason? The other party goers will get on your case. They will question you and scrutinise you and possibly even try to sabotage you. Nothing ruins a sober social engagement quicker than a slurring drinker criticising you for “being boring”.
2 Make sure you can leave under your own steam. No matter how many promises the people you have come to the party with make about not staying late, not drinking too much etc etc, when those bottle caps start popping off those beers, nothing will be able to drag them away. The second you feel like a hostage at a party you’re back to having pores that seep with resentment.
Oh yes, and if anyone does get on your case and start telling you you look miserable, you are well within your right to just leave. Drunk people are the worst, so fuck ‘em.