The hazards of alcohol

At an Italian restaurant a few years back, a scruffy waiter attended our gathering of friends. He sported a mop of black hair and small, twitchy eyes that winked when he refilled our wine glasses. Unfortunately, the more we drank the better looking he became. By the end of the night — and several bottles of wine — we swore he looked just like Antonio Banderas. When he threw an erratic eye squint in our direction, we responded with our own winks.

It's no wonder the Web site Live- Science lists alcohol among its top 10 aphrodisiacs. Ranked among classics like raw oysters and Spanish Fly — as well as newer favorites like Viagra — alcohol "lowers inhibitions and raises the level of one's irrationality" (a perfect cocktail for romance). While booze can be a great motivator, though, it poses serious hazards.

Like beer goggles. In the August issue of the British medical journal "Alcohol and Alcoholism," scientists from the University of Bristol concluded that beer goggles (the effect where everyone looks better after a few drinks) is a real phenomenon. Student participants were divided into two groups; both were given a lime-flavored cocktail. The control group consumed a non-alcoholic version, while the test group drank theirs with a shot of vodka mixed in (on a side note: why do tests like this only happen in England? I don't remember my college campus doing experiments that involved free alcohol). The subjects waited 15 minutes, then reviewed pictures of other college students. Overall, the photos were rated 10 percent less attractive by the sober students than the drunk students, who then threw up on their shoes and stumbled back to their dorm rooms to e-mail exgirlfriends.

Which brings us to another problem of drinking and dating: the alcohol-induced e-mail. Thankfully, Google has tapped into the needs of the nation and launched a new application for this sort of problem. Google account holders who opt-in to "Mail Goggles" are given a series of math problems to solve before they can access e-mail late at night on the weekends. The equations run along the lines of 7 x 3 and 11 x 8, simple enough during the average work day, but a struggle after a night of heavy drinking. Now if only Alltel and Verizon could prevent drunk texting or, worse, drunk dialing.

When it comes to mixing alcohol and romance, the worst offender is closely linked to, well, performance. In the same LiveScience article that listed alcohol as an aphrodisiac, the author quotes Karen Boyle, director of Reproductive Medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital, as saying that alcohol affects blood flow, which can lead to E.D. (known less trendily as "erectile dysfunction"). She concludes that booze has a negative effect on the libido. This calls to mind the famous scene in Shakespeare's Macbeth where the Porter shares his philosophy on the consequences of drunkenness: "Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance." Drinking, says the Porter,

makes a man "stand to, and not stand

to," a sad end to any hot date.

With alcohol — as with love — moderation is the key. Otherwise, you might go home with Antonio Banderas but wake up next to a Corsican waiter.

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