And like a Mighty Wolverine

There is still no cure for cancer and AIDS research could benefit from more funding, but researchers at Manchester University have perhaps unlocked a key to understanding an affliction with a world-wide hot zone: beer goggling.

In a study funded by Bausch & Lomb PureVision, researchers developed a formula that they think accounts for an inebriated person's inability to apply his or her general standards of taste when selecting a potential sexual partner.

In prose that reads like an Onion front-page story, BBC News reports that factors such as "the level of light in the pub or club, the drinker's own eyesight and the room's smokiness" are as likely to cause morning-after obloquies as impaired cognitive function and an unlocked libido.

According the study, "68% of people had regretted giving their phone number to someone to whom they later realised [limey sic] they were not attracted." The BBC does not report the percentage of respondents who had regretted giving something more intimate than a number, but suspicions suggest that the number is high.

One wonders, though, about Bausch & Lomb's stake in this research. Is the future filled with display cases stocked with beer-goggle-eliminating eye drops, perhaps located beside pills to end hangovers? Will GQ and Cosmo converge, both hyping stylish pairs of spectacles to be worn during long nights on the town?

And, moreover, do those afflicted with beer goggles need another excuse beyond their own excesses to explain their sloppy conquests? One imagines talk in the fraternity and sorority houses: "Well, without my contacts I have 20/40 vision, so if I only funnel once and then stick to Solo cups of Natural Light...." How many hearts have been broken on nights that begin with such promise?

And are our young men and women, or our career drinkers of all ages, prepared for the higher math that this study requires? I submit that they are not¹.

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¹Especially considering our international rank of 25th in aptitude in Mathematics.