Your very first date is always awkward. Mine was no different – riddled with oopsies and big life lessons. But you would think that after 10 years of dating, you would have learned those lessons by now.
My first exposure to drinking was second-hand from my school friend’s mother, a drunk. At family dinners and after school hangouts, Melissa liked to mimic her mother and would always order a drink called “sex on the beach,” a fruity mixture of peach Schnapps and vodka.
When I went on my first date, I thought I was being really sophisticated by ordering a sex on the beach. My date looked at me as if he was trying to guess my real age, then reached into his pocket and handed me cash. “Here. You order it. I can’t ask for that,” he said. That line still rings in my ear.
From that point on, I’ve stuck to the very socially acceptable mixture of bourbon and ginger ale.
Ten years later, I was with the boys at Dublin Jack’s on Saint Patrick’s Day and felt like a beer. Well, the girlie half-bred version known as “a shandy,” a half-pint of ale and a half-pint of soda or lemonade. “I’m not asking for that,” Dick said. But like a true gentleman, he did anyway.
Even though this region is famed for mixing cola with fine Bordeaux and green teas with vodka, I knew I had made a faux pas. That made me wonder what other drinks were on the forbidden list. I turned to the authority. “Dick, what drinks should a girl never ask a man to order?”