I apologize to anyone who has come to the site and not been entirely aware of what it going on. I initially expected this to just be for my friends but people I have never met are stumbling across it so I thought I should explain a little better.

My name is Christian. I am 29 years old and I live in Boston, MA.

I’ve gone through my whole life being what most people would describe as “straightedge” which is someone who doesn’t drink or do drugs. Teetotal is the old-timey way of saying one who does not drink.

As I get older, I found myself spending a lot of time thinking about the social ramifications of not drinking. As a kid, I was surrounded by friends that lived near me and went to the same school I did. We would hang out after school and this became my network of friends. Now as an adult my friends are scattered around the planet and the local ones often don’t live close to me at all. Making new friends has become a lot harder.

Most people socialize in some sort of alcohol-based or alcohol related context. Bars, clubs, parties, etc. In Boston these are the places you go to meet new people. Even when I hang out with my existing friends, I often feel like an outsider for being the only one not drinking.

As I got closer to turning 30, I started to think about what things I could do to change my life. “Meet new people” was high up on my list. (Not that I don’t like my friends. Quite the opposite.) Many of the things involving meeting new people seemed to boil down to one thing standing in the way: I don’t drink.

So what’s a teetotaler to do? The problem solver in me says to change variables in the situation until something improves.

After spending some time thinking about it I decided to take 30 days and discard my teetotal status. For 30 days I would see how everyone else had fun. Would it have an impact at all? Would I make new friends? Would I alienate my old friends?

Only one way to find out.