Never Thank Someone For Kissing You
Cocaine makes you embarrassingly grateful.
It was one of those parties where it was obvious that everyone would either grow up to be rich and famous, or die terribly young. The stench of youth was arrogant—radiating off of tight skin and thin figures. It may have been Ricky’s birthday, sure, but the real celebration was for the luck that kept us beautiful and, coincidentally, alive.
That year, Ricky said he wanted his birthday to be a bender—cocaine and liquor for 24-hours straight. Outside of a few drunken make-out sessions, he and I weren’t particularly close. Ricky was one of those characters you only heard about through other people.
“I love him… he’s a sweetheart… he’s so fun… but I’m worried about him.”
Ricky had olive skin, sparkling Cancer eyes, and a remarkable air of loneliness. His oil paintings were precise and strokeless—abstract-expressionist figures trapped in gradient seas of color—there were dimensions, it seemed, that only he could see. It was easy to imagine Ricky being misunderstood—his work reduced to street-side posters or Tame Impala album art. It was the context of his sensitivity that revealed his brilliance.
I wished him a happy birthday, asking to see any paintings he hadn’t yet posted online. There were none, he told me. He had set them all on fire.
“Ricky what the fuck? Why on earth would you do that?!”
He shrugged.
“Even when they’re good. They just aren’t what I want them to be.”
In the few intimate conversations Ricky and I did have together, he seemed convinced that no one cared about him.
“People only talk to me when they want fucking coke.” He once confessed in a stranger’s bathroom. “Nobody wants to get to know me. I’m so tired of it.”
“I want to get to know you.” I said, flushing before I shook myself dry.
“No, you don’t. I know what you want.”
He was cutting lines on a small, gilded hand mirror.
“Ricky, I promise you. I didn’t come in here for any other reason than to piss.”
I washed my hands and dried them on a bath towel. Ricky rolled a $20 bill and vacuumed the mirror with his nose. Then he held it up to me.
“Here, I cut a small one for you.”
I snorted it as politely as I could.
Every cokehead I knew was at his birthday—the problematic painters, the tortured lesbians, the rave kids with thrifted costumes, the rich white boys, and the twink socialites. We were aflame—cutting up lines with AmEx black cards and chasing down the bitter drip with shots of Hennessy. That night, Ricky’s apartment felt like the cocaine capitol of the world.
Cocaine is one of those drugs that intensifies repressed emotions. After a line or two, it’s impossible to hold back words you normally have trouble saying. Inhibitions are lowered and confessions slip out of you with a lubricated ease.
If you’re the type of person who normally tolerates bullshit, you become no-nonsense aggressive, screaming at any-and-all perceived slights.
If you’re the type of person who normally holds in all of their thoughts, you become a philosophical entrepreneur, and every idea starts to sound genius.
If you’re like me, and you typically withhold your sentiments, you become intensely emotional, and embarrassingly grateful. It didn’t take more than two lines before I found myself squeezing a woman’s hand and asking her when she first knew she was beautiful.
It took nearly three days for me to recover from Ricky’s party. Three days of diarrhea, swollen jaws, and bleeding gums. Eating or drinking water was hell. My teeth were grinded into nubs and the insides of my cheeks were peeling. I had chewed them like a wad of gum and the skin inside was shredded into sores, kinda like when you eat an entire pack of sour Skittles too fast. I was hollow. My flesh had been flipped inside out. I’m sure if you put your ear to my chest you might’ve heard the ocean. Cocaine hangxiety made me want to curl up in a ball and sleep forever, but my body wouldn’t stop trembling.
No one ever tells you that the most devastating side effect of too much cocaine isn’t shitting yourself, or intense emotional outbursts, or bloody noses, or losing your sense of smell, or throbbing migraines, or broken friendships—it’s embarrassment. The sober aftermath of realizing you stopped repressing yourself. Remembering conversations makes you want to die. The humiliation of it all is enough to make you quit altogether.
The last time I did cocaine was off the cracked iPhone of an acquaintance I hadn’t seen since Ricky’s birthday. She walked into the bar, found me sitting in a booth, and curled her finger in a 'come over here' kinda way. Seductive. She wore a puffer jacket over a crop-top and was wrapped in a pink boa. It was impossible to say no.
We made small talk in the girl’s restroom as she poured the bag onto her phone.
“Yeah it’s really getting chilly. Summer flew by so fast!”1
Next thing I knew, I was out front in an alcove making out with a boy I met earlier in the night.
“I need to get your number,” he said and handed me his phone. 6’4, dirty blonde, rugged, athletic. My fingers trembled as I typed my number in. He was beautiful, and I was surging with gratitude. In fact, I was shaking with it. And, as I said before about cocaine, if you feel something, you say it. So as we made out I pulled away and did the ickiest thing imaginable.
“You’re so hot…”
“Thanks man, you’re pretty hot yourself.”
“No but like… You are SO hot… Incredibly hot.”
He laughed and we kept kissing.
I pulled away again.
“Thank you so much…
I went back in.
“You’re so hot…
“Thank you dude… You are so hot… Thank you. Thank you. Mwah. Thank you Mwah.”
I couldn’t stop saying it. It wouldn’t stop coming out. And I could feel his interest in me grow flaccid.
“Y’know,” he said, “you really shouldn’t thank people for making out with you.”
I didn’t know how embarrassed I should’ve been until I woke up the next morning with chewed gums and 10+ messages left on delivered.
“It was nice meeting you :)
“You’re really cool.
“We should hang out sometime.
“You should come over.
“Wanna watch a movie?
“You should come clubbing with me and my friends.”
Every text made me want to die, and of course, the cherry on top.
“Thank you :)”
I wanted to explode. He never responded beyond sending a, “It was nice meeting you too. I had a really good time :)” which I suspect was a gentlemanly way of relieving my palpable digital anxiety.
I could never forgive myself, and most scornfully, I could never forgive cocaine. I never wanted to embarrass myself like that again. And it wasn’t too hard to quit after hearing about a couple overdoses, angry outbursts, and rehab stints through the grapevine. I get tempted sometimes, I really do, but no amount of sentimentality and overwhelming love is worth losing another soulmate. Now, I just try my best to express my sentiments out loud. Sober. And I never thank people for kissing me.
My last flirtation with cocaine came over half-a-year later.
I was at a bar I hated, on a date with the worst kisser I’d ever met. He was sweet, but his tongue moved like a Nutri-Bullet. We held hands and I was nervous, scanning the floor for people who might recognize me from the some of the worst nights of my life.
An old friend walked up. A guy named Nick 'ZA 😮💨'.
“Yo dude it’s so good to see you! You look…” he scanned me up and down, “really good.”
“Thanks dude,” I smiled nervously. I was wearing a white button-up tucked into a belted pair of Dickies. My face was shaven and my hair was tamed.
Nick put his finger on one nostril and pointed to the bathroom.
I put my arm around my date and shook my head.
Nick was shocked, as if I just rejected a free lottery ticket. In awkward pity, I looked at my date half-heartedly, “Do you wanna do some cocaine?”
“No, not really,” he replied.
Nick scoffed, taken aback.
“So you’re too good for us now huh?” And he stomped away.
I found Nick later by the bathroom. He seemed embarrassed.
“You look like you’re doing really well.” He put his hand on my shoulder. “I’m really proud of you.”
I smiled, fiddled my thumbs a bit, and walked into the restroom. When I looked in the graffiti covered mirror I felt dirty. Embarrassed. I wanted nothing more than to go home. Seeing Nick, refusing cocaine, lingering in that bar I couldn’t stand, surrounded by people I used to know, it was uncanny. Liminal. I was floating in a lost dimension, like one of the figures in Ricky’s paintings. I was better, sure, but I wasn’t what I wanted to be. Suddenly, I understood. If I had matches and some gasoline, I would set myself ablaze. I took a deep breath, washed my hands, and stepped back out, smiling before sitting back down with my date. The horrible, horrible, horrible kisser.
People always insist that if you feel yourself nearing blackout, you should take a bump and you’ll be able to drink more. I’m not sure this is 100% true. I’ve definitely blacked out a bunch while on coke. Maybe I just drank more than I snorted. I don’t know.
I love this so much wow
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