Being the designated driver on a Lakeland nightlife out with your friends might be seen as a chore at first. Let’s face it. You have to look after your friends while they progressively get drunker further into the night. Sometimes you have to clean up after someone throws up — it might even be in your own car. Your friends look like they’re having the time of their lives while you’re sitting at the sidelines and trying to have a conversation with your Diet Coke and bowl of complimentary nuts.
People are constantly coming up to you and asking you why you’re not drinking, and they immediately peg you as a buzzkill because you don’t have a drink in your hand. However, as exhausting and unappreciated you feel as the designated driver, it does have its perks, and here they are.
You don’t end up recklessly spending
When you’re out drinking with friends, you tend to be less than financially aware and usually end up spending more than sober you normally would. But if you’re the designated driver, you have your wits about you, and are capable of making sound financial decisions that don’t involve overpriced shots.
You don’t have to go through the trouble of being hungover the next day
This is a definite plus if you stay sober. You can wake up the next day without feeling like there’s a two hundred pound weight on your head and sick to your stomach. You’ll welcome the next day all bright-eyed and bushy tailed, not to mention, capable of stomaching breakfast without waves of nausea coursing through you.
You’ll know exactly what transpired that night
You know what that means. Blackmail. You have the insider scoop on what happened that night, pictures and videos included, which means that you’re free to retell the story of how so and so ended throwing up on a squad car, and nobody can doubt your story.
You won’t do any of the usual stupid things that drunk you is prone to doing
Remember what we said about drunk you making poor financial decisions? That also applies to decisions that you normally would never make. This way, you can wake up the next morning without the dawning realization and horror that you just professed you love for your best friend, or that you called up your ex in a drunken stupor to tell them that you still loved them.
You get to keep you and your friends safe
This is the biggest benefit to being the designated driver is that you can rest easy knowing that your friends are in good hands. None of your drunk friends have to get behind the wheel, which eliminates the risk of a potential road accident. Because let’s face it, your friends might be idiots when they’re drunk, but you love them, and you don’t want anything bad to happen to them.