By CARL JAVIER

DISCUSSED: the powers of alcohol, great professions to the tune of “Bittersweet Symphony”, unremembered conquests

My powers of courtship have never been a point of pride. In fact, I owe most, if not all, of my relationships and sexual encounters, to the powers of alcohol. It seems that there is an inverse correlation between sobriety and my ability to interact with women.

When I was a senior in high school I had a green-eyed, half-Italian college sophomore for a girlfriend. G was wild, sexually voracious, and to be honest, a bit of a psycho. But I was kind of into that. And I had absolutely no idea how she became my girlfriend.

A few days prior to meeting G, a girl from the neighboring section had just broken up with me because a teacher had caught us committing a public display of affection (holding hands underneath a book during lunchtime) and I was bummed. My friends, to cheer me up, planned a birthday party for me and brought college girls for us to hang out with. Last thing I remember was showing up to at Rommel’s Billiards already pretty smashed and ordering a bunch of Colt 45s while picking out my cue stick.

The following morning I woke with a name and number written on my hand. I called up my best friend, who explained to me that this name belonged to G, who was now my girlfriend, and with whom I had a date with later that day. I remember, as an undergraduate, a professor told me that I should try writing sober, because until I did, I wouldn’t know if it was really me, or the alcohol, that was doing all the work. In the case of the courtship with G, it was definitely the alcohol doing all the work. Things did not last between us, as a few weeks of intense intimacy and then the onset of sobriety showed what that relationship was based on.

On another occasion, I had a long neck bottle of Tanduay to thank. In an attempt to gather the courage to profess my love to K, my best friend as a sophomore and junior in college, I bought that Tanduay and took it to my friend Daryll’s house. She had always been the big sister I never had, and I knew that she would have valuable input on how I was to proceed with my courtship with K. She had that, but she also had her own long neck bottle of Tanduay. We wound up drinking well past a decent time when I could head to K’s apartment and talk to her.

When the sun started to come up I pulled on my headphones and started playing The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony” on my Walkman as I walked down the block from Daryll’s house to K’s. Halfway there, “Bittersweet Symphony” ended, so I stopped, rewound the tape, and then played it again, because I felt it was essential that that song be playing when I made my great profession. K came out in her pajamas, rubbing her eyes, and asking what the hell I was doing outside her house that early in the morning.

I told her that I was in love with her.

She told me that I was drunk, and she could smell it.

I told her that it didn’t change anything.

She told me to go home.

Though I was sent home that morning, the act of drunken bravado was charming enough to get my foot in the door, and led to a two and a half year relationship. At this point I could continue on this chronicle of inebriated courtships and one night stands, but then it would take us too long to get us to the present, which is where I am right now.

In the present, I am single and sober.

While I’m still one to search for the bottom of the bottle every once in a while, the stamina for long-term drinking, as well as successive drinking nights has left me. It doesn’t help that a number of drinking buddies have have gotten married, had kids, settled down, or have started to become afflicted with ailments that would have something to do with alcohol consumption. Thus I have been trying to get by sober, before I come down with something myself.

This has not helped me in my attempts at dating.

I am a bumbling, nervous, sweaty mess. I babble on and on because I think that my date will get bored. Or I just wind up looking like I’m trying too hard. The breezy coolness of an alcohol buzz always took the edge off, eliminated the self-consciousness and insecurity that dominate my thoughts, and kept me cool and composed enough to be charming. And I think that the smell of alcohol also covered up the scent of desperation that I seem to be giving off now.

In the past I had been the asshole who, under the influence of alcohol, and possibly other substances, hooked up with women and then promised to call them but never did. Now I find that I am on the receiving end of drunken promises.

I don’t mind getting felt up by drunk girls. I rather enjoy it really. It’s just that I’ve slipped into another mode now. Previously, if the chance encounters could be had, then I would (and did) enjoy the hell out of them.

But now I find that rather than the guy who I used to be the morning after, hung over, making a quick exit, and trying to lose the girl’s number, that I am the one texting or calling and not getting replies. Ex-girlfriends who still bear grudges would probably consider this karmic law exacting its justice. Or perhaps this is the fate that I have earned. In the past I was always lost and out of focus. As a younger person I took a lot of people for granted, what was being offered and given to me I took without much thought.

I could get women when I was barely conscious. My best work as a Casanova was done drunk and left unremembered. Now sober and self-conscious, I can barely get through a date without blathering out a brain fart. Perhaps it’s time for me to get a drink.
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Carl Javier is the current editor of the Metakritiko section of the Philippine Online Chronicles. He’s still trying to finish his MA in Creative Writing from UP, where he graduated with a degree in English Studies. He has been a fellow of the Dumaguete National Writer’s Workshop (2003), UP National Writer’s Workshop (2005), and the UP Advanced Writer’s Workshop (2009). His first book, And the Geek Shall Inherit the Earth, was published by Milflores publishing. “Sobriety and Its Inverse Correlation” is an essay from a book he is currently finishing, tentatively titled The Kobayashi Maru of Love.