High Sobriety (32 page)

It seems that drinking to get the romantic juices flowing is an accepted way of finding a mate in modern culture. It's sold to us as an intrinsic part of matchmaking. Dating-coach websites often feature pictures of attractive couples smiling as they share champagne and cocktails. Pubs and nightclubs have been the happy hunting grounds for singles in Australian cities for decades. In rural areas, where isolation makes it harder to meet potential partners, the Bachelor and Spinster Ball is an engrained part of bush tradition. Historically, the events were a way for men and women in farming communities to find a husband or wife, with many travelling long distances to attend the balls. They were big occasions, with a formal dress code and all money raised going to local charities. But over time, they evolved into all-you-can-drink mega-parties — usually sponsored by alcohol companies and local pubs — where getting hammered and having sex was such an integral part of the evening, guests were often given showbags with condoms and lubricant, and offered free breathalyser tests the following morning. The tradition is now waning due to rising costs, the increasing drift of young people from the bush to the city, and tighter regulation around the service of alcohol. But the tradition cemented the inextricable link between drinking and sex in the minds of many Australians.

The idea of alcohol as an aphrodisiac is not a modern notion. The French artists and bohemians of the late 19th century used absinthe as a way to boost their sex drive. These days, champagne has become synonymous with romance and seduction. And there's even some scientific evidence that drinking might help the sparks to fly: a 1994 study in the international journal
Nature
showed that even small amounts of alcohol can enhance a woman's libido, boosting the release of the male sex hormone testosterone in the brain. The same effect was not found in men, and was more pronounced in women who were taking the pill — probably because they had lower testosterone levels than those not taking the oestrogen-based drugs.

It's perhaps not surprising the two should be linked: both alcohol and sex stimulate the release of the chemical dopamine into the brain's reward pathway — essentially, its pleasure centre — sending the signal that the action is pleasurable and worth repeating. If our sexual desire is physiologically altered by alcohol, it might go some way to explaining the thousands of regrettable sexual unions taking place every Friday and Saturday night across the country. But for me, it's rarely about craving the act of sex, and more about satisfying an emotional need. If I drink too much and I'm not in the right headspace to start with, I can really feel the depressive effects of alcohol. It can make me maudlin and sentimental, and will bring any underlying sense of loneliness to the surface. Suddenly, I'm a slave to the urge to be held, or to feel a warm body next to me as I sleep. Add to that the fact that inhibitions and logic usually vanish after about the fourth vodka and soda, turning every knuckle-dragging moron in the room into Brad Pitt, and you have the perfect storm. At that point, I won't hold out for Prince Charming, but — to borrow a phrase from one of my fellow
HSM
bloggers — will be happy to settle for a half-wit wrapped in tin foil. Then, you get him home and it's obvious that, although alcohol may have brought you together, Mother Nature's perverse sense of humour has ensured that it has also caused complete mechanical failure and rendered any chance of sexual satisfaction a physical impossibility. As Shakespeare famously observed, alcohol ‘provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance'. Only when you sneak a look at him through one eye the next morning, as he lies there in his chocolate-brown Y-fronts like a pallid monument to regret, do you realise just how drunk you were last night.

I know that my bad decisions can't be explained entirely by alcohol's myopic night vision, but there is some evidence that beer goggles are a scientific phenomenon. In a study conducted by researchers from Bond University, 80 heterosexual men and women aged 18 to 29 were recruited from campus pubs and parties. Three groups were established: really drunk (those with a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.10 per cent to 0.19 per cent — up to four times the legal driving limit); moderately drunk (0.01 per cent to 0.09 per cent); and designated drivers, or people who were sober. The volunteers were shown a series of photos of people of the opposite sex and asked to rate their attractiveness, on a scale of one to ten. Those who were moderately or heavily drunk rated those in the photographs as significantly more attractive than did their sober peers. Getting drunk had turned ‘bow to wow'. As the researchers noted, this is a concern, given that previous studies have shown that the more attractive a person is, the more likely their sexual partners are to engage in risky behaviour, such as unprotected sex. But evidence on the beer-goggle effect is inconsistent and inconclusive. In a study published in the
British Journal of Psychology
in 2009, researchers showed 240 men and women, in varying degrees of drunkenness, pictures of other women, and asked them to rate their attractiveness. In this study, drinking alcohol had no effect on how attracted they were to those in the photographs.

With all that in mind, it's probably a good thing that my first crack at internet dating is going to be a sober one. I sit down to set up my online profile, which, I quickly discover, is a unique form of torture. The photograph-selection process involves finding a picture that conveys the delicate balance of friendly but not desperate, serious but not stern, kooky but not weird, and sexy but not slutty. I'm going to need help.

I invite my friends Nat and Mel over, to give me the benefit of their dating wisdom. Nat vetoes one picture because I'm showing too much cleavage. I argue that, given I'm spruiking myself like a house on a real-estate website, this might be the ‘appealing north-facing aspect' that gets buyers through the door.

‘You don't want those kinds of guys,' she says, deleting the picture, and I'm reminded of just how bad I am at this stuff.

Writing the ‘about me' section is another exercise in self-flagellation. How to sell yourself and sound interesting, without coming across as a self-involved twit? We joke that I should write it all in tabloid-newspaper headlines: ‘Scottish Chick in Still-Single Shocker' or ‘Melbourne's Once-Drunkest Hack on Hunt For Love'. In the end, I settle for what is hopefully a vaguely amusing and informative précis of my passions, hobbies, and life goals.

The part that takes the longest to resolve is the section on drinking habits. There are three options: non-drinker, occasionally/socially, and often. I wonder, much like I do at airport check-ins when they ask if you're carrying any flammable liquids, lighters, or weapons, what kind of person thinks it's a good idea to say yes to the last option, even if it's true. I describe myself as a social drinker, figuring that it's partially correct — given it wasn't that long ago I was the most sociable of drinkers, and I can't see myself ever again drinking in a fashion that could be described as
anti
social. I just can't bring myself to tick the non-drinker box. Even after all I've learned from ten largely fulfilling months without alcohol, I still don't want to be labelled as a teetotaller; the stigma of that is almost worse than the stigma of internet dating. And if I tick the non-drinking box, I worry that I'll attract clean-living fitness freaks, mummy's boys, or Jesus enthusiasts. There is, of course, the chance that I could attract men who, like me, are taking a break from binge drinking, and are interested in self-improvement and a relationship that runs deeper than the bottom of their pint glass, but I'm not willing to take the risk. The world of online dating is massively superficial without adding any additional reasons for men to discount you.

When I hit the button to make my profile go live, it's an unsettling feeling. A friend who's using the same dating site has told me that her sister warned her against it, saying that it was a cyberspace meat market for guys in search of an easy shag. Then she related the tale of a young woman who was kidnapped by a guy she met online and taken to his home, where she discovered that he'd dug a grave in the backyard. She was held captive for two days before being rescued in a police raid. Is this what I'm risking by advertising myself in the most public space imaginable? The site doesn't allow members to use their own names, so at least that's something, but when the system matches me with a reporter from a rival newspaper, and I stumble across my ex-boyfriend's best mate, I realise just how exposed I am.

Each time a new email arrives, a sound like a harp being played goes off. I assume this is meant to signify Cupid at work, but it's quite incongruous with the contact I'm getting from all manner of unsavoury men. Some have instructive names like insatiable7 (presumably insatiable one through six were already taken), rodtherock, romeohadjuliet, and beast. One guy, calling himself Triggerhappy, includes a picture of himself on a plane trying to open the exit doors. It's captioned ‘Escape!' Several are holding their crotch (cos the ladies love that shit), while one has posted a montage of scenes of himself frolicking with his dog, including one shot in which they appear to be French-kissing. In one bloke's picture, he's shovelling a foot-long Subway sandwich into his mouth. Another has chosen the seductive ‘YOU ARE ALL FULL OF SHIT' as his profile headline. It's every bit as dispiriting as I thought it would be.

But what's even sadder is the desperation and despair evident in some of the profiles. Shattered62 asks, ‘Why can't an overweight guy have a cute girlfriend?' There are a lot of broken men out there. I can only imagine what sort of self-esteem problems led Worthalook, WOULDuSETTLE4less, and NotGoodLookingSorry to choose their online names.

I decide to move swiftly past those who are obviously on the rebound, still pining for a lost love, or in need of emotional first-aid. I'm looking for a relationship, not a renovation project. I also bypass anyone who's pictured shirtless and pouting, or lists sex under the ‘What I'm Looking For' section, which is a surprisingly large contingent. It's a challenge trying to pick someone that you might click with based on an eight-centimetre square photo, and a few hundred words of what is probably an imaginative sales pitch at best and a complete fantasy at worst. I try not to be superficial, but find myself dismissing any bloke who's wearing a wife-beater, thinks that scanning the racing form guide counts as reading, cites
Two and a Half Men
among his favourite television shows, or doesn't know the difference between ‘your' and ‘you're'. It's a brutal culling process, but it works both ways; I'm rejected by many of the men I contact. My perception of my place in the dating hierarchy takes a battering. Am I destined to be matched with beast or with the sandwich-inhaling guy?

Then I'm contacted by someone who seems normal. His email is fun, flirty, and grammatically sound. He's a self-made businessman and an animal lover. And he's cute — which, let's be honest, is important. As this is my first online date, and essentially a blind date, I arrange to meet him at work. It means that I don't yet have to navigate the awkwardness of refusing a drink in a bar, but I also figure that if he comes to the
Age
cafe, there will be dozens of hacks there to bear witness should he turn out to be a grave-digging sex offender.

When he arrives, I'm impressed. He's well groomed, and dressed in a sharp suit. He has a warm smile, and a calmness to him that's appealing. There's no getting around the weirdness of the situation, though: we are complete strangers trying to make a romantic connection over coffee at 11 o'clock on a Tuesday morning. I don't even know his surname. But we are, at least, fully clothed. I probably already know more about this guy than I ever did about some of the inebriated boneheads that I got naked with hours after falling over them in bars.

My date starts by telling me he's relieved that I look like the pictures on my profile: ‘I've had a few bad experiences.' Oh, really; how so? ‘Mostly with women lying about their weight. They'd say they were slim when in actual fact they were very large. I've learned that photos taken from the side can be deceiving.' After being misled by five big girls whose pictures had portrayed them otherwise, he went on a sixth date, and when she turned up he took one look at her and said, ‘I'm sorry, I have to go.' I'm pretty sure this is what David Brent did to a woman in an episode of
The Office
. It was an awful thing to do, even in a fictitious setting, and I can't help but think less of this man for being so cruel. He says he now uses a microscope to study the online pictures, and we laugh, although I'm not sure he's joking.

We chat about his business and his travels, and how he has changed careers several times already. He seems nervous, but the conversation goes well. I tell him about my job, and somehow, although my strategy had been not to disclose this until at least a second date, we get around to talking about my year without drinking. He doesn't seem immediately horrified, so I explain the situation further. Then he surprises me by telling me that he doesn't drink at all. When I ask why, I'm stunned by his response. He used to drink a lot. He was putting away a bottle of whisky a day from an early age. By the time he was 21, his doctor told him he showed signs of liver cirrhosis. After one massive bender, he was so ill he ended up in a psychiatric ward. After that, he stopped drinking for six months, but he was soon back on the piss. He says he realised that he's the kind of guy who can never stop at one drink. He quit permanently three years ago, and hasn't touched a drop since. I'm amazed that he's sharing this with me on a first date. I don't judge him for it — I know all about the nature of addiction, and I'm impressed by his fortitude — but it's a risk telling a stranger such a personal story. What's even more astounding is that on my first attempt at sober dating, the guy I meet with is a recovering alcoholic. You couldn't make this shit up.