The Man Who Thought He Could Drink

     My boyfriend thinks he can drink. He goes out with friends to bars, where he always imbibes too much. Is he drinking to forget his troubles? No. The reason he drinks too much is because he has many obsessive rules involving multiple aspects of his life, and one of those rules governs alcohol consumption. Here it is:

I must buy drinks for each friend I go out with, and then each friend must reciprocate.

     Let me try to explain (although it is complicated and I may not get it right). It seems that when a person goes to a bar with friends, each friend must pay for a round. A round is one drink for each friend, plus one for yourself. Let's say there are four people involved: Joe, Jack, Fred and Sam. The person who invited the other three (we'll make it Sam) buys the first round, meaning one drink for each friend plus himself. That's four drinks total. Stay with me, there's more.

     When all the drinks of the first round are consumed, the next friend must repeat the process, buying one drink for each friend and one for himself. This is repeated two more times, resulting in each friend buying and consuming four drinks. The more friends, the more drinks. Since the bf is only paying for one drink for himself, theoretically he is getting three “free” drinks. In practice, however, he is actually buying four drinks. This ends up costing him more than if each friend had bought his own drinks, because the bf probably wouldn't have had four drinks without the pressure of the rounds system (hereafter referred to as “trs”). You see, trs forces the bf to keep up so that,

1. he gets his fair share, and:
2. he doesn't lose face and undo all the male bonding that has occurred.

     Unfortunately, trs doesn't always work the way the bf thinks it should. (This happens with a lot of his rules). He seems to have a substantial number of friends who are both cheap and light drinkers.  Since the bf almost always pays for the first round,

these friends suck up the free beer, and never offer to buy an additional round. There always seems to be at least one friend like this. This is the guy that stays for three rounds, and then leaves just before his “turn”. Or, he may nurse that one free beer all night.  This drives the bf absolutely apeshit. He comes home drunk, complaining about how cheap and socially retarded his friends are. Then he passes out fully dressed and I have to take the dogs out late at night.  In the morning, he insists that he didn't pass out because he made it to the bed. This, according to him, shows that he went to bed, rather then passed out 

     Sometimes, he over-drinks and overeats. This usually occurs at parties. Then he comes home, throws up (with many dramatic, loud, sound effects), and becomes absolutely convinced that he got food poisoning from the snacks. The drinking, of course, had nothing to do with it.  He moans:

"I've been poisoned!  Call 911!"
He's not kidding.

Pathetic? Yes.
Kidding? No.


The End.