Drinking, Dating Don't Mix

I'm a little late to the party on this one, but I like this opinion poll that Stephanie Klein is taking. The question reads (clearing throat): "What does it mean when a girlfriend is nicest to you when she is drunk?"

I love this question because the Boyf and I are having some minor issues surrounding my level of intoxication on weekends and how that corresponds to his getting yelled at. Picture the line graph in your head: Two Coronas and a three-block walk home equals sweet, balmy, whispered nothings and pleasant descent into slumber. Half a bottle of red over dinner, two pints of Blue Moon, and a Yuengling back home might equal "Why do I always have to come over to your place, huh? Huh? Why can't you come over to my place for once?" Any more than that, and you're venturing into "You down't takk care of meeeesh the wassyy.... Hmmmph" and me-sleeping-on-the-couch-for-no-discernible-reason territory.

We're working that out.

But a girlfriend who's nicest to you when you're drunk brings back memories of my ex, whom, for the sake of argument, we'll just call "Evil." I liked Evil so much. He was smart. He was well-read. He was in my career field. We could talk for hours essentially comparing our resumes. (Scintillating, I know.) Once we went to a party with all of his friends and, late in the night, he gave me a slow, sweet, deep kiss back by the downstairs coatroom. Of course, being naive and in my early 20s, I found this ridiculously sexy. What I overlooked, however, was that Evil ignored me the entire night, only getting friendly when he'd had a few. I began to realize that Evil wasn't just ignoring me at parties. He was ignoring some of my voice mails, several calls, a few IMs, and pretty much all of my feelings in general. It was a painful realization: Booze (and I know this is shocking) is just not enough to hold a one-sided relationship together.

And also let me argue this from the girls' side. Ladies, we all know when we're just being downright mean to a guy. Usually -- not always, but usually -- it's deserved. But sometimes, when we've had a few cocktails/beers/kamikaze shots, that damn nurturing side will come out and we'll think hazily, "I shouldn't be so mean to him. He's really not so bad...." And then we sway and we coo, and we put our arms around him, and we try to convince ourselves that he's the one for us when we know -- and boy, do we know -- that he's not.

Verdict: What does it mean when your girlfriend is nicest to you when she's drunk? It means she doesn't like you as much as she wishes she did.