I’ve only been away from Toronto for a few weeks, but I already miss my favorite cocktail bar unbearably. Civil Liberties is a “verbal menu” bar, so you just describe what you want and they try to make it for you. There are other such bars, including here in New York, of course – but Civ Lib is the first I ever went to, and is still my favorite. It’s also where I learned one of the most important lessons there is to learn about sex and kink… by ordering a cocktail.

At age 29 I was obsessed with dirty martinis. (Still am, albeit less so.) I would order one at any and every bar I went to. But on this particular night, since I was at Civil Liberties, a haven of cocktail creativity, I decided to give ‘em a little leeway. When a bartender approached me for my order, I asked, “Could I have something like a dirty martini?” and watched the gears begin to whir behind his eyes.

He darted away, and came back a few minutes later with a drink that looked like a dirty martini, translucent with olive brine – but I quickly discovered, upon taking a sip, that this was an original creation. Normally that kind of originality is the reason to go to this bar at all, but in this case the flavors hit me all wrong: the brininess of the olive brine and florality of the gin had been paired with a licoricey anise note that I just wasn’t digging. But by then, the bartender had raced off to go serve someone else (Civ Lib is perpetually hoppin’, as they should be), and I was left alone, with just my cocktail and my deep-seated people-pleaser tendencies to keep me company.

Part of me wanted to send the drink back, and another, louder part of me insisted I could do no such thing. Sure, I knew that the bartenders there were usually happy to make another drink on the house for any customer who didn’t like what they ended up with – but I hate feeling like a “Karen,” and, even more than that, I wanted these whip-smart drink-slingers to like me! I didn’t want to seem high-maintenance or argumentative. But I just wasn’t feelin’ the drink, so eventually I summoned the courage to ask the bartender if he’d mind just making me a dirty martini instead. It was the drink I should have ordered from the start, since I’d known in my heart that it’s what I wanted.