We are both sober, so the first meeting is coffee and it is fine
Looking for somebody comfortable with an evening that has no bar in it
Neither of us drinks. Seven years for him, five for her, and the whole of this part of our life has happened alongside that. It is not a secret we spring on people at the table and it is not something we need anybody else to join in with.
What it changes is the shape of a first meeting. Coffee in the afternoon rather than a drink at eight. It also means we notice things that people who drink do not, chiefly that a lot of this board's social life is organised around a bar, and that an evening without one is a genuinely different conversation.
Thirty four and forty, the Valley, six years in this. She dates, he is at home, and neither of us found the transition from one to the other difficult, which surprised our sponsor more than it surprised us.
We can host and we usually do, which suits everyone.
Not looking for anyone who has to explain that he only drinks a little. That is fine, we do not care, and the explanation is always longer than it needs to be. Not looking for anyone who cannot imagine an evening without one. Not looking for anyone who reads sobriety as fragility, because between us we have twelve years of evidence otherwise.
Before the first drink Replying goes through the connected platform, so nothing about you is shared until you decide to share it. Take contact slowly and keep identifying details back until trust is earned. Meet somewhere public the first time, with your own way home from it, and if you are a couple then go together. Tell someone outside it where you are going. Never send money to someone you have not met. And if a post or a reply reads wrong, flag it rather than talking yourself out of the feeling.
Before you answer a post like this
Two people wrote this together, and both of them have to say yes to you. These are the three written for the man on the other end of it.
- What makes a single man read as safe
- Vetting a couple: the screening men skip
- The first meeting: a drink, all three of you