Free Drinks

In face book there's an option for open relationship in your "marital" status. These relationships really don't make sense to me. I believe the point in a relationship is to be monogamous – otherwise you’re just dating and there is a difference. You cannot love someone you do not trust and you cannot trust some one who isn’t honest. If you’re cheating on some one then you aren’t being honest and honesty is essential to having a healthy long-term relationship.

I won't say that I will never cheat on a significant other – things happen and I have eaten "never" before, but the point is: I happen to want to be faithful. Being faithful isn't always easy, especially not in the college lifestyle. Opportunities and suggestions come into play for which I cannot always be prepared. I have learned through trial and error that it is a good idea to stay out of situations that become awkward to get out of later.

Case in point, I like to go to the bar with my girls -- this usually means that I will get dressed up because I enjoy that on a night out. I just turned twenty-one and have recently discovered a bar down town that I really enjoy. With my best friend, Tiffany, in tow I will walk up to the bar, order a drink for me (a 32 oz pitcher of some concoction that doesn’t taste alcoholic but that is probably half liquor) and a rum and coke pitcher for Tiffany. We find a place to sit down saving two seats for the girls who are meeting us there.

A guy I saw previously at the bar, who had asked me what I was drinking, sits down across the table and gives us a "what's up" nod. I smile and nod. When the waitress comes over he tells her he wants to buy us another pitcher of whatever we want even though I'm barely half way through my first and Tiffany has barely started hers. He's staring at my cleavage while the waitress relates to me that he wants to buy me a drink. I don't mind the stare – I wore what I did on purpose. I do turn down the drink. He gets the idea after a minute or two, and goes to look elsewhere. Shortly thereafter the girls we are meeting sit down at the table with pitchers in hand and Tiffany relates the story. Heather looks at me wide-eyed.

"We aren't friends any more. You never turn down free drinks!" She's joking about not being friends any more, but the latter part of the sentence she's more serious about.

But I do turn down free drinks. There is a suggestion behind buying a girl a drink and there is a suggestion behind accepting a drink. Not to mention that the more alcohol I drink the less clearly I will be thinking about my actions. I don't want to lead them on about who I'll be going home with at the end of the night.

There was a lyric in a Savage Garden song that said “I believe that trust is more important than monogamy” which I would agree with to some extent. But not being monogamous in a relationship is a lie and how can there be trust with lie between two people? Granted it was a Savage Garden lyric and very rarely should you take pop lyrics seriously, but it was something that used to make me think about the kind of relationship that I wanted.

And besides all that, my boyfriend was my DD.