Ever taken or given out your phone number to someone at a bar, only to seriously regret it the next day? If you have, then no doubt you’re familiar with the beer goggle effect.

I first encountered beer goggles my freshman year at Penn. However, I’ve never seen it quantified like this. In a nutshell, a group of researchers at the University of Manchester have actually developed a formula for calculating the beer goggle effect.

Beer Goggle Formula

The equation is straightforward enough, so I went ahead and put together a simple spreadsheet to help you determine what your beer goggle effect is on a normal Friday night.

As for myself, I figure on an average night out, I get minimal beer goggles with a rating of 10.0.

I’ve mellowed out since college, and tend to hang out at dive bars, having maybe 4 beers total. Smokiness is not a factor, since smoking indoors has been banned in Seattle. Most dive bars are relatively dark, so I set that parameter at 35. My vision is pretty bad - even with contacts I’d rate myself at 0.9, and 3 meters seems like as good a distance as any to check someone out.

What rating did you end up with?