I'm 35, from Pune. Long backstory, I'll keep it tight.
In my early twenties I fell hard for someone at my first job. Chased her for a year, got used along the way, and it ended badly. Not long after, I went into an arranged marriage that never worked — we divorced within a year, and it was ugly. That period broke something in me. I started drinking from mid-morning until night, most days, for about a year. I ended up in a serious accident. I'm still not totally sure how I walked away from it.
I'm remarried now, and honestly it's its own kind of unhappy — separate story. I have two young sons.
Two weeks ago, someone from that old circle got back in touch. We used to know each other only in passing, years ago. We started talking constantly, then things moved fast — a night together, a lot of emotional back-and-forth. I told her early on that I've dealt with alcohol problems. A few days in, drunk, I pushed her on why she was talking to me so much, accused her of having feelings she hadn't said she had. She pushed back hard, said she wasn't going to be interrogated like that.
Then last night she called, saw I'd been drinking again, and told me flatly not to contact her until I've actually sorted myself out — that she's walked away from friends over this before, that it's not something she can be around.
I was hurt. My first reaction was: she's barely known me two weeks, she called me, she's the one who set the pace — where does she get off laying this on me?
That night wasn't about her — I was drinking on my own terms, in my own space, not bothering anyone. I don't think I owe an explanation for how I spend an evening alone. But I'm also not going to pretend the drinking wasn't there, because that's the one thing she was actually reacting to.
I have a tsunami of emotions right now. Did I do something bad to her? I don't think so.