To ask: if you are an occasional cocaine user, are you aware how you appear to others?

[mixandmatch]

I've been thinking about this a lot over the last few weeks so am interested in views.

I don't take any drugs myself and drink very little but am not personally that judgemental about those who indulge more than I do. I have a few friends who smoke weed occasionally, and likewise a few who on a 'big night out' will have some coke. I'm often the least drunk person on a big night out and am fine with that: everyone makes different life choices.

But increasingly I find the cocaine use absolutely unbearable and it made me wonder... do people who occasionally use coke realise how boring, selfish, cold and weird it makes them appear to others? For me, it is a whole different ballgame to drunkenness or even other drug-taking: alcohol makes you slur your words a bit and be more emotional/giggly/free of inhibitions, weed makes you a bit dopey, but I just find coke does something absolutely horrific to people. Plus there is the whole 'sneaking off into the bathroom/shared private joke' thing that I just find incredibly rude and excluding to those who aren't involved. If it's so socially acceptable why not just do it off the dining room table, in the same way you'd happily enjoy a glass of wine alongside teetotallers?

I know that occasional coke use isn't uncommon so I'm just curious: if you either do it or once did it, did you realise it made you like this and just not care, or would you have thought I was the boring party pooper?

It must be your circle!!! I was almost 30 before I was ever offered it by my friends sister in law at a house party. Declined. Never offered it by anyone else again for years! None of my social circle take it, ever.
Whenever I have been around people who have taken it and I knew about it it hasn't bothered me because my main group of friends are also not on it...maybe get new friends?

Ha, that's fair advice and the vast majority of my friends do not take it. There's just one particular group who I see occasionally who do.

And they never offer it to me as they know I'm not interested. But this is why I wonder whether they know how rude they appear both to me, and others present who aren't indulging.

But after this latest episode I did resolve to just ensure I'm never around them in future when it's happening.

I've never touched cocaine in my life and was recently very surprised to learn some people I've known for years do indulge in it.

None of them fit your descriptions at all.

They just come across as normal people like everyone else.

To be clear @mzpq my friends are totally normal and nice people when they're not actually taking coke. It's just taking it that makes them (in my opinion) very boring and self-absorbed and kind of cold and dead-eyed. It's hard to describe unless you've seen quite a bit of it live in action.

I don’t go out much so have no exposure to it but in what way does it affect them that isn’t nice? I thought they would just talk more? or be boasting. Is it very noticeable?

No. They just feel animated and excited and think they're having great chats with people.

@3luckystars It's very noticeable to me. I think it makes people talk about almost nothing but themselves so basically normal conversational norms (like asking questions of others, showing basic consideration) go out the window... in a way I don't find they do with people who have just had a bit to drink. I also find the very act of going off into a different room to do something when you have guests/friends there slightly odd. Like, I wouldn't just go off and read my book in another room for 15 minutes when I had friends over.

Cocaine is horrible, it does nasty things to people.
I know it is an a normal part of a night out or special occasion for some. And not unusual at all in professional/ middle class circles.

I am with you though OP. It is not a good look from an observers point of view. People can be so cold and obnoxious on it, often just incredibly boring.

Not to mention the wider links the drug has with exploitation and criminality.
I know I am middle aged and dull probably ....

Cocaine … built on the murder, torture and enslavement of men, women and children

How anyone can take it, when they know it’s coated in blood, is beyond me

Morally repugnant individuals.

I know what you're saying.

I'm saying that I don't recognise any of this in the people who I've recently found out, indulge in cocaine now and then.

Hence why I've known them a long time and had no idea until recently.

Yep @flowertoday @ExtraOnions there's obviously the whole moral angle on it which is a different matter and all you say on that is true. But clearly they don't care that much about that, so I more just wondered whether they'd care from a selfish point of view if they knew how awful it made them... like, I would want to know if I was being accidentally really rude to my friends on an occasional basis.

Back in the day I tried it a few times but didn’t notice any effect whatsoever. Perhaps I’m always boring and self-absorbed.

I can't pin point it to describe either, it does just seem to turn people in to dickheads!
In my younger days I was a regular pub goer and there were definitely people that I enjoyed chatting with on say a Tuesday night, that were completely insufferable on a Friday!

Never taken it despite it being very available when I worked in advertising. It’s completely immoral to take it due to the crime element

I am fairly often amongst people who use coke, and apart from making people a bit intense I don’t recognise your description of people at all.

I dislike being around people who are on drugs. I'm no saint and probably drink a bit too much (but only on special occasions), but people who are on drugs give me the creeps. It's like those AI videos. It's as if they're not real people who interact like real people.

@X123x321X That's a good description actually - gives me the creeps, not fully real people with proper emotions. Drunkenness intensifies emotions, whereas to me it appears that coke kind of takes them away...

That’s a really good description! I feel the same way.

I stopped going to away football matches because of the cocaine use. Arseholes to a man, it was unbearable. Completely different to how they were on the drink.

Football matches! Interesting. I don't think of coke as a football fan's drug, so that surprised me but clearly I'm wrong.

Maybe unsurprisingly, a lot of people on this thread are agreeing with me, but genuinely if you are a coke user, I do want to hear your real point of view. Loads of the middle classes are at it, so that must include some mumsnetters so am interested in the opposite perspective...

I don’t do coke, but I also don’t drink. The exact same can be said for people who drink alcohol. It’s bloody tedious listening to them bleat on with the same stories I heard last year at this party.

I can definitely tell the cokeheads in any crowd, but I can also easily pick out the sloppy ones with a drinking problem because they are also incredibly annoying. There is a whole group of mums from school that I just want to hide when I see them come stumbling and cackling by, because I’ve heard them bitch about the same people already and I already know how someone will bust out the shots of tequila rose at some point before 10pm. Bores me to tears. I avoid them as much as possible at school events I can’t easily get out of.

Cocaine notoriously makes people act like arrogant twunts op. I am amazed people think "it just makes them a bit more chatty"! No, definitely not. It can make people overly confident/cocky, arrogant, lacking in warmth. That is very well known

Agree that sloppy drunks can be just as bad, but op is talking about coke

I agree with this, my friends who do aren’t awful when they take it, similar to being a bit tipsy. I have seen strangers out who are complete arseholes, but not sure if that’s just who they are usually!

I have one friend who turns into a nightmare when she’s had too much to drink though!

Except for aggression. It definitely heightens that.

I'd play gigs most weekends and a perfectly routine gig with just a couple of loud twats at the back would change the moment the bloke with the gear arrived. It would start with a couple going off to the toilets, then another two or three - by the time there were nine or ten of them back there, they'd get really lairy with the bar staff and seeking out any smaller or not dressed like them male to have a go at in the hope of provoking a fight. And if they didn't react (what with being 1-2 surrounded by at least four of the pricks), the pricks would start it themselves.