Monday, December 20, 2010

The Drinking Conundrum

You are at a party. There is this hot girl you want to talk to. Actually, there are many hot girls at the party, and you wish to talk to any of them - but this girl is the one who has especially caught your eye today. However, for all your strengths, you are rather shy when it comes to talking to girls. For, while you have full faith in your IQ and intellect, this is not the first things that girls notice about you. For, the thing that stands out about you is your pretty impressive paunch. You like to call it the family pack, but that is a joke no one else really appreciates - especially not the hot chicks, like the one you have your eyes on.

You are also not helped by the presence of a number of hunks in the party, the more than six feet tall monsters, and while there seem to be an almost equal ratio of the two sexes - a situation you are not really used to, having studied in institutes where the female-per-male ratio ranged from 0 to 0.1, and having gone to work in offices where while the overall ratio was much higher at 0.5, when it came to your team, it was back to the familiar levels of 0-0.1 range - you know no girl will even notice you while those hunks are there. And you cannot help but wonder about challenging these guys to a game of Scrabble or Chess, and humiliating them and their measly minds. Just like they humiliate your physicality by being there. Also, you cannot help wondering about how unfair life is. You know any time you approach any girl, you will get rejected, and its the fear of rejection which stops you from doing anything. Which is why, this being a free booze party - may God grant a long life to your DU-educated cousin, and may your relations remain ever cordial, and may he continue inviting you to these awesome birthday parties with hot chicks, you pray to the almighty - you turn towards the booze and start staring at the target of your affection, who is being wooed by one of these monsters. And all you can do is drown one drink after the other. Which is good in a way, because the booze is rather limited, and you want to make hay, while the sun shines. Not only do you have drink after drink, in anticipation of the party Armageddon, you have Patiala pegs after Patiala pegs.

Now these large Patiala pegs have two immediate effects : a) It increases your courage, and drowns your rejection fears, b) It makes you more capable of irregular rambling, and your talks becomes less and less intelligent. There is a third, long term effect - which you will notice only the other day - is the loss of memory.

So now, as you might have guessed, your courage and your perceived intelligence are functions of the amount of alcohol in the blood. While your courage is an increasing function, the intelligence of your talking is a decreasing function. This is depicted in the graph below.



The graph makes it clear that there is a very specific number of drinks (depends on person to person), when it is safe to approach the girl. The moment you get the courage is when you should approach her. That is the only time you might be able to impress her with your intelligent talk. The moment you overdo the drinking part though, you have the necessary courage but you lose out on the intelligent bit - and as a result, your only window of opportunity.

Now the drinking conundrum is this. What if you are never able to reach the requisite number of drinks. What if your graph looks like this?



Because you wasted your chance on other girl last night, after rambling to her something you don't even remember. You remember talking and talking, and generally not making sense. As always. This is the 30th girl you have talked to in the year.
The drinking conundrum is killing you. You need a way out, but is there an exit? Or is it all for the best, and should you give in to the fangs of arranged marriage, that have already engulfed so many of your friends?

Questions, to which you have no answers. Even with your super-high IQ.

Or maybe it is high time to hit the gym.