Now check it out - alcohol "makes" everyone beautiful

Alcohol causes cognitive bias, and attributing better qualities to the potential partners in the bar than they have in reality. Now it is also scientifically proven

You sit in a well, pour vodka, and another one. Suddenly a handsome guy from the movies starts with you - Noam from Survival, really. Caesar's nose, Hercules' body and thick, quality hair. Before you know what's happening, you're hugging him like a yael who wants some self-confidence. The next step, of course, is the test game. His or yours? Never mind, you just want that hunk's tights.

Morning. You wake up to find yourself lying next to a Greek idol, but this time he looks, as we say, from the less lovable version of Greek mythology. A nose like a sweet potato and a gorilla's body. The hair is still thick, but growing wild from the toes to between the teeth. How come you didn't notice that when he started with you, you wonder? Congratulations, you have fallen victim to alcohol.

It has long been known that alcohol causes release from inhibitions. Small amounts get you talking and make you happy. But now it has been scientifically proven that a sip of alcohol makes you overestimate the beauty of everyone around you. And in simple words: alcohol makes everyone more beautiful, except the one who drinks it.

In a new study from the University of Bristol in England, the researchers took 84 lucky male and female students and watered them down with a quarter glass of vodka 37.5% alcohol, mixed with three quarters of a glass of tonic water. 15 minutes after drinking, the students were asked to rate pictures of women and men according to their external beauty. Some of the students were given the placebo - tonic water without alcohol. The day after, the students were asked to rate the same pictures again.

The results were partly predictable and mostly disturbing. The alcohol-infused students were, on average, more generous in their distribution of grades than the sober students. So far everything is predictable. But the big surprise came with the discovery that the men who were drenched in alcohol were more attracted not only to pictures of women, but also of other men, and like them, the women. So the next time you order the next whip, you should make sure that there are not too attractive people of the same sex around. Who knows how high the alcohol will lift them?

Think it's disturbing? very But what is no less interesting is the morning after. 24 hours after the experiment, the female students had time to return to their senses and evaluated the photos accordingly. The male students remained spoiled, and continued to give high marks to the women's pictures, even 24 hours after the effects of the alcohol wore off. And so the women are doomed to always be disappointed the next morning, while the men remain blind but happy.

The study is not immune to error, of course. The researchers admit that some of the students were able to identify, 24 hours after the test, whether they drank tonic water with or without alcohol. There is a concern that the mere knowledge of the presence of alcohol in the sample could have influenced their assessments. On the other hand, we all know after the fact that we were drunk, yet behave the same way every time.

Is there a solution? People will always drink alcohol, and dudes will never lose their cool. All that is left is to hope that a new substance will be found, which will also allow women to preserve their high and drunken values, and will cut off the gorilla's disappointment from the morning after with hostility.

The research was published in the scientific journal Alcohol & Alcoholism, August 2008. The editors of the research were Lisia LS. Parker, Ian S. Fenton-Walk, Angela S. Atwood and Marcus R. Monafo.