Beer Goggles
Created | Updated Sep 2, 2003
Picture The Scene
When he walks into the bar, the creature hunched over the bar, leering into her alcopop is the most grotesque specimen of a human being that he has ever seen. His spine crawls merely at the sight of her flabby legs poking out from under an ill-fitting mini-dress.
After one drink she's a wild venomous animal, drooling through teeth as yellow as your great-grandmother, the one that died of jaundice.
Strangely, by the fourth pint her feminine qualities are beginning to shine through, the eyelashes fluttering coquettishly as he smiles towards her from the bar.
He glances up from the base of his sixth pint glass to see a plain, but attractive girl, her figure beautifully accentuated by the elegant gown that glides from her shoulders to her slender thighs.
The night wears on and he heads to the bar for the umpteenth time. Emerging from the mist as he squints through the smoky atmosphere, the woman of his dreams has fallen from heaven and miraculously arrived in 'Valentines', a sleazy nightclub somewhere near Burnley and frequented by that delicate breed known by many simply as 'slappers'. Her golden hair glows as it frames a pale, elfin face, the radiant skin outshone only by her come-to-bed eyes. As she smiles her white teeth glimmer like stars from behind her scarlet bee-stung lips, and when he takes her hand and leads her sultry figure to the dance-floor he already knows she will weep with joy at the prospect of seeing his John Travolta impression. In the taxi home he places an arm around her fragile shoulders, a gentle kiss quickly spreading into the passionate embrace.
The following morning he awakes with a lingering pain in his head, the blood violently pounding against his skull as if to punish his excesses. The agony is dulled however, as he remembers with a satisfied smile the gentle angel that made love to him so enthusiastically the night before.
But wait... What's this? As he tries to visualise her features a desperate grimace attacks his facial muscles, tearing away the smile that had previously been entrenched in his stubbly cheeks. The stark realisation of what he did last night prompts the first beads of a cold sweat to pierce through his skin. Within minutes the tears of embarrassment are flooding down his cheeks like the Niagara Falls after a particularly wet winter.
Yes, the time has come to face facts - 'I slept... with that'.
This brief but tragic passage documents an example of the alcohol induced phenomenon commonly known as "having the beer goggles on".
Common Affliction
It is a condition which can afflict any being stupid enough to consume copious amounts of any ethanol-based beverage, and is not solely restricted to those people who select beer as their poison of choice. It should also be noted that beer goggles can also be worn by members of the fairer sex, although they will often use excuses relating to menstrual cycles and previous sexual conquests when explaining their actions at a later date.
Although they do not have a physical manifestation in the way that, for example, swimming goggles do, the consequences of wearing beer goggles can be far-reaching and, as we have just demonstrated, very traumatic. What's more, despite the great volumes of documentation warning us of the effect they can have on our lives, millions of otherwise relatively sensible and upstanding men and women apply the beer goggle treatment every Friday and Saturday night.
No Cure
At this point in time there is no known cure for the apparent psychosis brought on by over-inebriation, although many experts in the field do know of methods which can be used to reduce or prevent the consequences of beer goggle conquests. Some claim a certain combination of drinks can prevent beer-gogglitosis, others recommend using friends as a gauging device when trying to determine the degree to which beer goggles are influencing somebody's attraction to a particular woman, asking what they think before acting on their own observation that she is a very beautiful lady and not merely some dirty minger seen through 'brewers lenses'. However, one major flaw with this method lies in the reliability of the adjudicator called upon. On one hand they may be trying to help ensure any subsequent congress undertaken as a result of their advice is trauma-free, on another they may wish to inflict the aforementioned suffering on the individual in question, and on the third they may be wearing beer goggles also, and hence have a somewhat degraded perception.
There is, of course, one surefire way to prevent suffering at the hands of beer goggles: abstinence from alcohol in all its forms.
When he walks into the bar, the creature hunched over the bar, leering into her alcopop is the most grotesque specimen of a human being that he has ever seen. His spine crawls merely at the sight of her flabby legs poking out from under an ill-fitting mini-dress.
After one drink she's a wild venomous animal, drooling through teeth as yellow as your great-grandmother, the one that died of jaundice.
Strangely, by the fourth pint her feminine qualities are beginning to shine through, the eyelashes fluttering coquettishly as he smiles towards her from the bar.
He glances up from the base of his sixth pint glass to see a plain, but attractive girl, her figure beautifully accentuated by the elegant gown that glides from her shoulders to her slender thighs.
The night wears on and he heads to the bar for the umpteenth time. Emerging from the mist as he squints through the smoky atmosphere, the woman of his dreams has fallen from heaven and miraculously arrived in 'Valentines', a sleazy nightclub somewhere near Burnley and frequented by that delicate breed known by many simply as 'slappers'. Her golden hair glows as it frames a pale, elfin face, the radiant skin outshone only by her come-to-bed eyes. As she smiles her white teeth glimmer like stars from behind her scarlet bee-stung lips, and when he takes her hand and leads her sultry figure to the dance-floor he already knows she will weep with joy at the prospect of seeing his John Travolta impression. In the taxi home he places an arm around her fragile shoulders, a gentle kiss quickly spreading into the passionate embrace.
The following morning he awakes with a lingering pain in his head, the blood violently pounding against his skull as if to punish his excesses. The agony is dulled however, as he remembers with a satisfied smile the gentle angel that made love to him so enthusiastically the night before.
But wait... What's this? As he tries to visualise her features a desperate grimace attacks his facial muscles, tearing away the smile that had previously been entrenched in his stubbly cheeks. The stark realisation of what he did last night prompts the first beads of a cold sweat to pierce through his skin. Within minutes the tears of embarrassment are flooding down his cheeks like the Niagara Falls after a particularly wet winter.
Yes, the time has come to face facts - 'I slept... with that'.
This brief but tragic passage documents an example of the alcohol induced phenomenon commonly known as "having the beer goggles on".
Common Affliction
It is a condition which can afflict any being stupid enough to consume copious amounts of any ethanol-based beverage, and is not solely restricted to those people who select beer as their poison of choice. It should also be noted that beer goggles can also be worn by members of the fairer sex, although they will often use excuses relating to menstrual cycles and previous sexual conquests when explaining their actions at a later date.
Although they do not have a physical manifestation in the way that, for example, swimming goggles do, the consequences of wearing beer goggles can be far-reaching and, as we have just demonstrated, very traumatic. What's more, despite the great volumes of documentation warning us of the effect they can have on our lives, millions of otherwise relatively sensible and upstanding men and women apply the beer goggle treatment every Friday and Saturday night.
No Cure
At this point in time there is no known cure for the apparent psychosis brought on by over-inebriation, although many experts in the field do know of methods which can be used to reduce or prevent the consequences of beer goggle conquests. Some claim a certain combination of drinks can prevent beer-gogglitosis, others recommend using friends as a gauging device when trying to determine the degree to which beer goggles are influencing somebody's attraction to a particular woman, asking what they think before acting on their own observation that she is a very beautiful lady and not merely some dirty minger seen through 'brewers lenses'. However, one major flaw with this method lies in the reliability of the adjudicator called upon. On one hand they may be trying to help ensure any subsequent congress undertaken as a result of their advice is trauma-free, on another they may wish to inflict the aforementioned suffering on the individual in question, and on the third they may be wearing beer goggles also, and hence have a somewhat degraded perception.
There is, of course, one surefire way to prevent suffering at the hands of beer goggles: abstinence from alcohol in all its forms.
