My First Social Weekend Without Alcohol Proved How Stupid I Am

It’s 11 p.m. Do you know where your dopamine is?

Jill Francis
6 min readAug 16, 2022
Women sitting in fancy cocktail dresses and holding coupe glasses of pink champagne.
Photo by Inga Seliverstova

Who among us wants to face the world these days, much less without a slight buzz on? It’s not just the fact that the world is imploding. Over a year of quarantine has also left us out of practice with being among humans and a lot of us left our social skills in our old pair of Going Out jeans. I may have had a tiny bit of compassion for myself if this were my excuse for drinking, but this is not my problem.

I don’t have shitty social skills. What I have is the ability to bust out the most charming, entertaining, fascinating interactions should we pass the evening together. All of this will arrive complete with an appealing suggestion for the perfect restaurant or a delicious menu in my immaculate home with a tasteful playlist. I will be dressed perfectly, smell good, and will have on at least one accessory that you love so much you can’t help but ask me where I got it. You will not, however, know that no matter how many times I throw back my head and laugh or suggest ten other activities that we can do together, I will be wishing like hell that I were on the couch with my Kindle in my husband’s old boxer shorts.

Do I not like you? No. That’s ridiculous. I like you a lot. I heart your Instagram posts and…

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Jill Francis

American immigrant in Italy with too many degrees in Psychology. I write about everything I’m afraid of. jillfranciswrites@gmail.com