Frustrated

I always have the energy and the train of thought to write during the morning while at work, but when I get home, I'm too tired to think and I never get around to it. But today I had a small inclination to write so I figured I best get on the computer before I lose it.

So what's on my mind these days? Not much; this and that; and yet I'm sure I'll rant endlessly about something. For starters, the ex-boyfriend. No, I do not want to get back with him, nor has either of us breached this topic. It's just not going to happen. We shall remain friends, but it's turning out that we won't be as close as I had previously hoped. And is that a good thing or not? I don't really know yet. I thought it would be nice to have a friend that knows so much about me, but then, since we're exes, maybe it's not a good idea? Anyway, I've felt frustrated with him lately.

I first noticed that I was frustrated with him at the beginning of October. A friend of everyone's had moved back to New Jersey and he was in town for a 4-day weekend the first weekend of October. We were all at a restaurant/bar on Friday night. There was about four or five of us and after the first hour, the drinking began. Upon our friend's dive into inebriation, Daniel chuckled and sighed in a I-give-up sort of way and said, It's going to be one of those nights. And at that statement, I had a moment of clarity. I was suddenly SO frustrated with Daniel and his late-night habits. Night after night he stays up all night and barely sleeps; then he trudges in to work either sleep deprived or hung over. He always says he needs to get a regular schedule or that he should cut back, but when crunch time comes, he chokes. When he said that he felt it was the start of another "one of those nights," I wanted to go off on him. I wanted to tell him that he was being ridiculous. It only becomes "one of those nights" because he lets it. He could simply chose to say, No, not tonight, and then go home. But does he? No. He stays out. He makes a conscious decision to stay out and drink the night away and then he whines that he had another of those nights. Bullshit! It's all bullshit and I was, at that moment, exhausted by it. He has the choice to stay out or go home, and he never goes home. (And frankly, on the odd occasion that he does, he drinks a bottle of wine by himself.) He just lets the current of the night take him off on a stupor when he could just freakin' say, No thanks, I should get home now. BUT HE DOESN'T. And that's what is so frustrating to me.

And I came really close to saying it too. But I held off because I was in a sour mood and tired from work and knew that if I said anything, my tone would definitely have been rude. And ever since then, when I see his Facebook status, his mobile uploads and hear stories from friends, I feel this frustration. You'd think I wouldn't because I'm not involved with him anymore. I guess it's because part of me still cares and I don't want to see him this way. A mutual friend of ours told me once that an intervention wouldn't even help him.

He also has this bar etiquette that frustrated me even when we did date. I can agree with some of it sometimes. But the way he latches on to it is part of the problem.
These bar rules of his are: 1) If someone buys you a drink, you MUST drink it.
I realize that if someone wants to be gracious and buys you one, sure, don't be rude and except it. But that you MUST drink it? What if you don't like it? I say this because there were a few times when somebody bought rounds of something (god knows what) for the table and it was awful. I did not want it. I tried it, but I did not want to make myself gag down the rest. When Daniel gets drunk, he gets loud and repetitive and he would keep telling me that I needed to finish it.
2) Always finish your drink.
Even if it's just the watered down bit from the ice. He would tell me that I still had some of my drink left. Geez. Only when he knew he was already too far gone would he leave the last of his beer behind.

And this all brings me to what frustrated me most. His idea of a good time is going out and drinking until you can't remember the night. I, on the other hand, really don't like drinking. I'll have one or two and call it quits. And I think the fact that there was still someone sober in the room made him want to make me drink even more. It's like he can't have other people around him that aren't drinking too. If he's drinking heavily, then damnit, everyone should be.

And this last bit isn't just Daniel. I want to ask: Why do people always get so shocked that I wouldn't want to drink? Why?? I really want to know. To each his own, but no... I'm not drinking? That's just weird! Puh-lease. Why can't people just say, Oh, OK and move on? I don't like how heavy drinking makes me feel. NO, it's not that I've drank so much that I'm sick now... I rarely drink to that point. Most alcohol just makes me feel bad. Most of the time it's beer. I can drink liquor and some wine. Although Merlot will have me on the floor in no time! I just don't like the feeling of bloating, dizziness etc. And if something makes someone feel bad, they don't do it. 

So to everyone who pressures their friend into drinking more than they want to, I have this to say: Back the hell off. They said no so drop it. What? You can't handle being wasted on your own so you need to drag someone down with you? Why can't you be happy that you've got a designated driver for the night?

So yeah, there's my rant. The whole alcohol thing played right into a part of Daniel that frustrates me. And now that we're not dating, I don't have to put up with it and thus I can vent now. I suppose that's plenty for now. I'm sure there was something else I wanted to write about, but I think this went on long enough.