Enjoying vs pretending to enjoy

Do I want to participate, or just observe?

image © the author

The other night an old friend of mine was hosting a gathering of friends and clients to celebrate a big event for his firm. The event was hosted in a space on the Mississippi River, just a few doors down from my old office. I used to go to the office every day, and frequent the bars on that street in the evenings. A drink or two (or three) after work, taking advantage of the happy hour specials. I haven’t been down there in years and years, even though it used to be one of my favorite parts of the city, and it’s just a few miles from my house. We parked near my old office and walked the few blocks to the event. It was a beautiful summer evening. People were out walking their dogs, jogging, sitting on cafe patios sipping wine and beer, meeting friends, enjoying the evening. I felt like I was returning to someplace I used to live, revisiting a past life. I had to remind myself that actually I still live here, I just haven’t been leaving the house much. 

So many evenings I would have been sitting at one of those patio tables, either with friends, or on a date, or alone and just observing. So many evenings I would be walking along that sidewalk anticipating getting to the bar, ordering a glass of wine, and finding a table with a view of the river. As we walked by, the thought of doing that seemed so foreign and remote. I felt nostalgia for those days, but also an ambivalence, or even a sort of distaste for the idea of repeating that experience. I was anxious about going to my friend’s event, and almost backed out at the last minute. A large group of well dressed, attractive people, taking advantage of the open bar, enjoying the fancy appetizers, and mingling with each other with no purpose other than to connect, and share, and relax. Four years ago, I would have been so excited for this event. I would have chatted with the bartender to choose a wine, and then felt reassured as I started to welcome the benevolence of an increased blood alcohol level to steel me for conversation. 

The idea of walking into the event space, seeing the beautiful bar with its dozens of familiar bottles arranged just so behind the counter, and then asking for a soda water, and receiving it in a large glass with the kind of straw that I used to drink McDonald’s milkshakes with as a kid, felt like it would be very anticlimactic. No fancy cocktail goblet, no subtle bouquet of aromas, no cherry soaked in Luxardo, no legs gently washing the sides of the glass. Imagining that scene has led me to avoid it as much as possible for the past two years. But the COVID excuse is firmly behind us now, and I don’t generally feel worried about getting the virus. This event was for a close friend, and I really wanted to see what it would be like, and what I would be like in that environment.

The question I’ve been asking myself since I received my autism diagnosis two years ago and subsequently decided to stop drinking, is whether I could ever do these kinds of things again. I don’t mean whether I would be able to endure events like this, or get through them. I’ve pushed through enough uncomfortable situations in my life to know that I am capable of doing that. The question I keep asking myself is, will I want to do it? Will I enjoy it? Thinking about alcohol use and late diagnosed autism is complicated. On the one hand, a lot of sober people aspire to do the activities they used to do with alcohol, and learn to enjoy those activities without drinking. On the other, now that my diagnosis has elevated my self awareness and freed me from the masking that I needed to do in order to participate in events like this, I feel like pretending to enjoy social activities (without the aid of alcohol) would be a regression. 

And that is the difference - actually enjoying an experience as opposed to pretending to enjoy it. As it happened, I did enjoy it. It was great to see my friend and his husband, and to chat for a while. I had a fun interaction with the bartender, which wasn’t quite the same culminating in a glass of water rather than something more impactful, but there was a moment when I realized I could enjoy that exchange simply as a human rather than as a human with alcohol in my blood. At the same time, I stopped enjoying the event fairly quickly. We couldn’t talk to our friends (the only people we knew) for too long because they needed to mingle with others. I did not enjoy the prospect of smiling at, and making awkward small talk with, people I don’t know and probably won’t get to know. In the past, after our friends went to greet others, I would have ordered another drink and chatted with my wife until we encountered someone else. We probably would have stayed for hours. But that night, after less than 30 minutes, I told my wife I was ready to go. And we went.

I left the event with mixed feelings. It was great to be out on a nice evening, seeing the life of the city, all the people engaging with the world. It was great to see our friends and catch up, even if briefly. It was reassuring somehow to see the city functioning as it does, with communities of people everywhere coming together, connecting, and looking joyful. And it was also exhausting and strange. Reading through some of my old journals, I’m reminded of how I used to sit for hours in cafes, writing, and just watching everything around me. There is something about being an observer in a city that I love. I’m fascinated by watching how people get on with their day, how they relax, how they interact. Observation, I think, is my preferred experience. Sitting on the bench and watching the people at the cafe across the street, or walking along the river, or emerging from their office buildings, heading toward whatever it is they look forward to after work. I thought I had outgrown that activity, having discovered as I did the ability to participate in the world. But observing is something I can do again, something I still enjoy, and perhaps will be a path I follow to re-enter the world on my own terms.