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?

I always considered it a sort of each to their own thing, until my ex got in to it and now I cannot abide the stuff, or tolerate anyone on it.

He became a pathologic liar trying to hide the fact that he was on it all the time, even though it was obvious, he started stealing from me to fund his habit and he was downright nasty.
One night, he couldn't find his keys to go out and meet his dealer. He accused me of hiding them. I hadn't. He headbutted me.
I left that night and it was the last I ever spoke to him.

Since then, I just cant suffer it.

ive never seen someone on it and Im trying to picture it

I think that if you're on any drugs or if you're drunk, then it's usually just weird and annoying for anyone around you unless they're on it too.

Smoking weed is just as bad
never met anyone dynamic that’s a weed smoker and a lot of coke users may use weed to come down

Yes manh of my friends do it but it's not sneaking off to a bathroom. It's shared on the kitchen table. I agree the sneaking off is incredibly anti social. I rarely do it but I have to be honest even though I'm not partaking my friends aren't Borish although I have been around some that are

People who wish for making everything legal are living a fools dream. Weed is legal where I am and its effects have been pretty poor. SO many now seem to think it's "safe" because of course the government would not have made something dangerous (like tobacco) legal, right? A big spike in use, especially among the young, weed induced psychosis, mental health effects, impaired driving....

And with so-called harm reduction many of the other drugs might as well be legal which has been massively socially destructive - people out on the sidewalk shooting up while kids walk home from school, their brains rotten, chances they will get off it at that point are small.

I agree with @Snowmaidenly about prohibition.

But to the question posed in the OP, no I don’t think they do. I had a group of people I used to socialise with- I was friends with one of them and sometimes went out with the group. Evenings were always fun to start with, champagne and so on, glamorous bars and clubs (glamorous to me, a student at a Midlands uni and they all private-school girls, studying at a London uni). It would be great craic to start with. Then after the first bar, it would start to feel exclusive. They all did coke but would go off in pairs to the loo, never offered it to me (!) and as soon as it started, they stopped being nice, slightly pretentious but kindly and interesting people, and became massively self obsessed, hugely pretentious and unpleasant exclusive dickheads. The first few evenings this happened I didn’t understand what was going on, and then a conversation happened in a different context, where my friend from this group was discussing drugs, and she said, “but coke is so nice!” and at that point I twigged.

(I had no strong feelings about it at the time and have always been open to trying things, but their behaviour on coke put me right off… and then later I understood a bit more about the supply chain misery and it’s now like Nestle or Shein or something, I wouldn’t buy it. Health doesn’t even get to be considered, it doesn’t pass the acceptable supply test. I also work in schools and am aware of the misery caused by county lines… so no. Not for me.)

This is the kind if switcheroo frequently seen in the climate debate; "Unless you're purer than the driven snow and contribute to no emissions, ever, anywhere in the world,
s h u t t h e f u c k u p, you hypocrite gobshite."
It's very tiresome on account of being completely bloody disingenuous.

@DoubtfulCat your experience is a very accurate description of my evenings with these friends!

The mighty Half Man Half Biscuit nailed it
'what made Colombia famous has made a prick out of you'

I'm not a cocaine user myself, but I think you probably need to consider that not everyone actually cares how they appear to others.

It makes people feel really good including about themselves and so they’ll just rattle on all night - but for them the are starring in an exciting movie. I’d never touch it again after early youth and seeing it catch a boyfriend and also I find it dangerous and repugnant.

This is why the good lord gave us mushrooms

Amen to that sister.

There is a half man half biscuit lyric for everything :)

Just because it makes them outgoing doesn't mean they aren't boring , selfish and cold. I find that coke users are loud but boring and selfish

It must be your circle!

I'm 41 and have never been offered coke, or even seen it IRL.

I don't think they serve it behind the bar.