Blame it on evolution.
This culprit is fingered by a recent study done by researchers at Duke University (motto: Giving basketball fans everywhere somebody to hate!) and sponsored by the National Institutes of Mental Health and the Cure Autism Now Foundation (co-motto: Redefining the obvious with your generous donations and tax money!). For the study, whose results will be published next month in Current Biology, rhesus monkeys were shown pictures of desirable females -- defined as those with an attractive rear end, a job, the capability of watching sports without interrupting to ask what a "safety" is, and an inability to bitch and moan about dirty laundry and the male monkeys' friends. The researchers determined that male monkeys will give up their ration of juice to get another look at the more attractive females' butts (duh!). Conversely, they found they had to give the male monkeys extra juice to compel them to view images of "lower-ranking" monkeys.
In other words, after years of hard research and millions of dollars, these guys figured out that beer goggles are a Darwinian phenomenon. And they say their next step is a similar study observing humans!
I can save them some time by reporting on any given night at any given bar -- especially one like Dave & Buster's (2000 South Colorado Boulevard). D&B is the ultimate non-naked environment and makes up for the lack of skin with such crucial guy entertainment as TVs, booze and video games. The Institute of Drinking Studies' official recommendation on this place is to go to the "Viewpoint Bar" -- which overlooks the restaurant and billiards room -- when you just need something mindless and different to warm up. Here you can knock back a Guinness or ten, the girls can sip neon-colored drinks with names like "Summer's Eve Slurpee," and you can all enjoy greasy bar food that by the next day will make everyone within a ten-foot radius of you wish you were dead.
After pre-lubricating, you move to the Midway, where primate behavior is on proud display thanks to a multitude of just-able-to-drink or has-a-really-good-fake-ID pubescent kids. Nobody can tell me the NHL is in the midst of a lockout, because I saw the entire Stanley Cup playoffs of tonsil hockey. Fights were conducted in the form of extremely heavy petting.
For those who want to play actual games, D&B offers a huge variety of violent hunting and urban assault games, all with FBI warnings to not do drugs or pack heat. There are also racing games (cars, bikes, skis, horses) that show you how impaired your motor skills are. A lot of people were playing those crane games featuring virtual orgies of stuffed cartoon characters, with SpongeBob figuring prominently, of course. One reason that people never extract toys from these games is that they (the stuffed toys) are locked in a lover's embrace. Then again, it may be that most players don't have the depth perception necessary to clamp the claw on Patrick Star's head while their tongues are in their partners' mouths.
As an old-school kind of guy, I spent a lot of time looking for old-school games like Defender, Galaga, Moon Patrol and Dragon's Lair because I knew I could beat the pants off my girlfriend at those. Failing to find any of them, we settled for a high-stakes game of Skee-Ball. In typical guy fashion, I tried for total dominance and got highly agitated whenever I found myself behind. Again, this was evolution in action: We figure that if we win at Skee-Ball, females of the species will be more inclined to give up their juice ration or self-respect in order to look at our butts.
Don't worry if you don't win every time, though: That's why God made beer goggles.
