The perfect buzz

I went out to dinner with my friends Party Kel, LVG, and Died for our quarterly meet up at our favorite restaurant Mamacita’s. While sipping margaritas we got into a discussion about dating and how awkward dates can be, especially when you are just getting to know someone.

Party Kel said that she finds dinner dates to be really awkward. Sitting across a table from someone over a plate of food, in a relatively quiet atmosphere, just the two of you, can sometimes be a pretty uncomfortable situation.

Then Died brought up the fact that Party Kel is missing one key element which makes any social situation just a little bit easier to handle, wine. Not just drinking wine AT the date, but before the date.

But how much wine is the right amount of wine? The girls argued that two glasses is not quite enough, yet three will make you into a slurring lush. The amount the group agreed upon was 2.5 glasses. Exactly this amount of wine can turn the most self-conscious of females into a social butterfly and turn any awkward situation into the party of the year.

I concurred with my own story of a recent social event I had attended while writing an article for the magazine. Normally, I would feel ill at ease at being surrounded by upper class businessmen and their diamond dripped wives, but with a few glasses of wine in me, I was mixing and mingling like the best of them. “Oh hello PR girl, so nice to meet you. Tell me all about the watch line.” “Dario Franchitti, congratulations on your two Indy 500 wins.” “Your son just won the auction item for $17,500? How charming!”

I have never personally used the wine-before-a-date trick, but I have had a few roommates in the past who have made me down a glass or two with them before they finished getting ready and headed out the door.  This along with my “I swear having a drink when you are hungover” trick may sounds like I am promoting alcoholism, and maybe I am, but I if it works, it works.