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I have date !
I am a 30 year old female and I have a date next Tuesday. We are going to the local pool hall to play pool. I am so nervous because I have never played pool and don't know , but that's what he suggested. I am also nervous because my friends say there might be alcohol there and I quit drinking 5 years ago because I don't handle alcohol well and what if he wants to buy me a drink should I just turn it down. I don't want to be rude. I also don't know what to wear to a pool hall. I don't to go over dressed or to casual either. What should I wear ?
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Hello! Congratulations on your date! That's really exciting and I'm happy for you to go and meet someone new. I am married now, but I remember those mixed feelings of nervousness and excitement and all the questions that pop into your head about how to navigate a night with a stranger.
I think the fact that you have never played pool before could be good - be honest and take it as an opportunity for him to teach you something. Let him know you've never played and I bet he's more than happy to teach you the basics. Most men love to show women how to do something they like!
As for the drinking, be honest about that, too. For the first date you do not have to go into every single detail about the reasons why you don't drink, just let him know that you don't and ask for a pop or water instead. If your goal is for this to possibly lead into a relationship, you want to be honest about the things that are true for you. If he's somebody who just cannot handle that, then that's a good thing to find out on the first date so you don't waste each other's time. It's not rude to turn down alcohol. Not at all. It's rude if he makes it an issue.
For what to wear - I'd go with the outfit you feel best in. Pool halls do tend to be pretty casual and often on the warmer side, so jeans and a cute short sleeve or sleeveless top are totally fine. I wouldn't go for a dress or skirt this time, since playing pool involves a lot of bending over.
Good luck on your date and I hope all goes well!
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You have many issues here to deal with so I will take them as you mentioned them.You are going to a pool hall and there is nothing wrong with going with someone to play pool, even if you haven't played before. The first issue is that you feel nervous. In this case, because of things you explained, the nervousness is doing it's job, acting like a warning light on the dashboard on your car just before it quits working, gas too low, oil to low, car is overheating, something wrong with an unknown part.
You are not nervous only. You also feel nervous because you don't know if alcohol is served there and you quit drinking 5 years ago. Your nervousness is telling you to not just go along with this plan and not knowing details, and possibly arranging a change of plans. Your friends are right that there might be alcohol served there. I have never been to a place that is a venue of only pool tables and no refreshments. I have seen most pool tables in bars where of course alcohol is served or the pool tables are in an annexed room to a bar or restaurant. You know you don't handle alcohol well and want to know if you should turn down a drink? Does this mean that you are considering accepting it without explanation? If you are a former alcoholic, and you go to AA meetings, then you would know you are already doing two things wrong. You are considering going into an environment that serves alcohol and two, you are considering drinking if offered one. Wrong wrong wrong!
So I am guessing you are very concerned about image and too afraid of what it will do to your image by attending AA meetings? Or how about telling this guy that you are a recovering alcoholic and need to know if alcohol is served there and if it is, letting him know you won't go there. Also let him know if he offers you alcohol in any other place, you don't want it either but you don't want to even be tempted simply because he is drinking in your presence. This is stuff he needs to know. Turning down alcohol is such a situation is not rude. If you do not explain beforehand, he might wonder and maybe, just maybe, eventually after many such No's from you, assume you are being rude when he just didn't have the full story becauseyou omitted the truth.
Before we go on to what to wear, I will go back to something else that stuck out and made me react. I don't know if he asked you if you'd like to go to play pool on a date, or if he told you that he was taking you to a pool hall without leaving a chance for you to choose. No matter which way he did it, you did say 'but that's what he suggested'. Did you have a counter suggestion? I'll bet you were too afraid to jeopardize having him take you out. You are more willing to assume that playing pool is sooo important to him that if you said no to pool, that he'd lose interest in you right away.
I've been there, but that was only in my teens, I've grown in experience and confidence since then. If it truly was just a suggestion, then you may have been overthinking it when you should have spoken up. Something people do is try to be their very best, best foot forward, hide a past you are not proud of, etc all to impress someone. In fact, we unwittingly set up a whole false persona to hide things about ourselves. After a bad first marriage, an abusive one, I knew what the warning signs looked like and met several guys that seemed real nice but no one can keep up a false persona, or hide something forever. Eventually, we get too comfortable and forget, and simply show our real selves before we even know we're doing it. So it is best to be real, from the start rather than him find out later that you have had a drinking problem in the past. Just think of the impression you will make on him or anyone if you say nothing and when they find out later, the impression you give is that you can't be truthful so you can't be trusted, or that you have any extremely low self esteem. This is much worse than being upfront in the beginning. If by chance you tell this guy and he leaves you, then its not a bad thing, its a good thing, because he may be looking for a drinking buddy for one thing, might be an alcoholic himself, or have unreasonable expectations if he can't accept that everyone has a past, past failures, past relationships, etc... and some one that rigid does not make a good bf or husband. So its' best that you find out in the beginning, rather than later when your heart might be invested. After a divorce, I didn't allow my heart to assume one guy was the one for me for rest of life until I had watched him closely and scrutinized his every behavior and taken notes of all good traits and irritating ones. And waited to see if he was consistent. One such nice guy got too comfortable. He was friendly and sweet until the night I was invited to his house where he made dinner. The moment I stepped into his spotless house, he complained about how messy it was and said it was because his hispanic maid was the culprit and he called this person all sorts of terrible names and racial slurs. Frankly, it scared me to see his true self he'd allowed to sneak out. So I ate dinner as if nothing was wrong and on his next phone call told him that although I had given it a long good try, I just wasn't feeling the chemistry with him. Never say the truth, the one time I did, I got hate calls for several days after. I shared that to let you know that I know what I am talking about. You don't want someone who will turn on you later into some character you don't like or who is harmful to you.
This is why I stress it is best to have the balls to be outspoken, taking more control of the situation especially in dating. Women don't need for a guy to chose to ask them out first, women can make the first move. It is not the 50s anymore. You don't have to go along with everything a guy says or suggests. Your opinion matters and if he doesn't like you to have an opinion and thinks the world revolves around him only, then he is a control freak and the type of man who can easily become very abusive. No little girl when asked what she wants to be when she grows up, says she wants to be controlled by a man, treated worse than garbage or abused verbally or physically and yet most will allow that to happen. Most girls say they want to grow up to be a princess. Well, we can't all be of royal blood, but we can date and marry a man who will treat us like a princess and i don't mean by a showering of expensive gifts. I mean by how a guy treats you. All this and way way more is what you need to learn before you will be ready to date successfully and actually be happy. The least of your concerns is over what to wear.
I am not even certain that question applies if you are going to be honest and tell him now, long before Tuesday, that you are a recovering alcoholic and if the place serves alcohol, you need to switch the date to somewhere else because otherwise you'd be placing yourself in a tempting situation. While at it, you might ask his drinking habits. Does he drink often socially or rarely. If he sticks with you, is he willing to not drink in your presence? Or better yet, not at all? Not everyone is perfectly right for each other based on many things, some of them from our past. When I went online dating, in my profile I put criteria a guy had to be able to meet to be able to date me, and one was that he be a non smoker. this is the same as saying you wont date a person who drinks alcohol. I did not want some guy to want to have to try to quit smoking just to be with me, that's not what I was asking. If I was to give in on my criteria and believe me, many guys tried to get me to lower my standards, then I would be the one having to live with and settle for less in a man and I know I would not have been happy. I didn't budge on what I wanted. End result, I met and married a wonderful man who is everything I wanted. Sounds like a fairy tale but I had period of time where i got frustrated waiting as it took a year before he finally wrote me on line and another week to meet in person.
I can honestly tell you I never worried about what to wear when I met my second husband. If didn't go in stained shirt and torn up jeans, but jeans and a top. If he wasn't impressed with me and who I was inside, I wasn't interested. Why dress up and doing hair and makeup not your every day look, and take the chance a guy expects you'll look like that 24/7 when you really don't. You don't want to attract a guy who is into looks only. I understand dressing correctly for where you are going but I expect there is more than that on your mind so I figured I'd share this too.
For pool, it's casual wear although if its a pool table room annexed to a restaurant as it was once for me, after dinner, some people who were dressed up a bit, but not formal, did drift over to the pool tables. Keep in mind you are bent over the edge of the pool table so anything too short may hike up and show too much. Any loose tops with a plunging neckline could gape open too much and show more than you want to not just him but any other guy in the vicinity. I'd say those would be your only concerns. So jeans and a clingy form fitting top, no loose hanging sleeves to drag a ball from its spot, is a good idea. If you have hair that falls in your face when you have your head bent down, would mean using something to keep it back or bring it along in purse in case you wind up needing it. The man sounds reasonable if he is taking you somewhere public but not considered romantic for a first date. It would imply he is thinking of your feelings, not wanting to make you feel awkward wondering if he's going to pounce on you. He may not be one to move fast, and likes rather to have plenty of time to get to know the female first. I am just guessing and this may not be true. But I can tell you one thing very important to the success of any relationship, and that is talking, communicating both ways, not one doing all the talk and planning and arranging and the one simply following and never giving input.
So first off, Call the guy and tell him what you haven't done yet, talk about your problems with alcohol and how it changes you and you must avoid it. Second, tell him that you do not know how to play pool and you never have tried, not even once so it depends on whether he is willing to teach you. You play for fun. I miss as many shots as I get ones right. I rarely win, but I find it fun to play, no matter what. You don't know if he plays all the time and wins and plays in tournaments or if he simply plays for fun sometimes and it was only a suggestion but not important that you go there. So ask and find out. While at it, you can ask him what most people wear to that place if you wish. If you can't be forward enough to talk to him and discuss this, you are not ready for a relationship. YOu need to be able to communicate in many areas of life, not just for a date, so if you don't learn how to offer up your opinion or other important info one needs to hear, that can also affect your entire adult life. I have seen a person wait ten minutes after getting her coffee but without a lid while I was waiting outside to give her a ride. When I went inside after ten munutes, it was busy but she had received a coffee to go, only they assumed she was drinking it there, no problem. I asked if she had asked anyone yet. No, she was waiting for someone to turn around and look her way. She made us late because she simply couldn't say, 'excuse me but I didn't recieve a lid. When I told her to say that, she couldn't and this was no young person, she was in her fifties. She had gone her entire adult life fearful of speaking up. You don't want that to happen to you, so start now, with this guy. If he dumps you over it, have the right mindset over that as I have explained, which is that he was nothing but a douche bag anyway and not worth dating. I met my share of them but it only took one bad impression early on and I dumped them. In most cases, if you are honest and willing to share your shortcomings, and issues with a person, it is not awkward as you might think. Everyone has their own shortcomings as well. And the impression you make when willing to share your own is that you seem like a more real person and one they feel they can be comfortable around. It is a good thing.
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