Two words: beer goggles. Oh yeah, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Or maybe you know that familiar slogan that pops up: "Helping ugly people get laid since 1900" or something along those lines. We love the sadistic humor of it because most people have experienced that awful realization of "the day after beer goggles" in the morning.

Needless to say, this town is extremely alcohol oriented. It is full of bars, bars and grills, bars and dance clubs, cornerstores, and more bars. It is amazing how much alcohol is discouraged, yet it's one of the few pastimes in State College. It is a college town, and that is the way for most students to socialize.

Being the favorite pastime that drinking is, I'm sure you can just picture all the drunken people who stagger out of the bars at 2 a.m., hoping to hook up with some fine-looking guy or girl.

You know those couples. They are always at a downtown bar. They are bumping and grinding and groping each other.

Their faces are sweaty and their makeup has melted from dancing and swapping spit. Pitchers clutter their beer-coated table.

When the last call bell rings, they scamper to the bar for one more drink and one more good grope before the final one. Slowly leaving the bar, they cling to each other like monkeys as they stagger down the sidewalk.

Friends yell rude, insinuating comments and they laugh it off — too drunk to care. Then they proceed down the yellow-brick road to their own little land of Oz. And the next morning, the question is, where did Kansas go?

Then, perhaps some of those drunken couples will try to build a one-night relationship out of their common interest — alcohol.

What a great idea! Let's take two people who have nothing in common except drinking. Then let's try to build a whole emotionally stable relationship while drunk. Um, stable? OK, obviously a relationship based upon alcohol is not stable. Take away the alcohol and usually these two beautiful people can't stand each other.

The problem is, I think most people seem more tolerable when you're drunk. You know that guy who is always so annoying? Well, he's hilarious when you're drunk. Or how about that girl in your sociology class who never caught your eye before? With your goggles on, she's a babe tonight.

My friend Katie had a similar experience. She met this "gorgeous" guy while she was completely drunk. Of course, her instincts were off track, but she didn't care at the time. She took him home, and oddly enough, they kept in touch.

Then, they planned their next date for . . . the bar, of course. And the next, and the next.

After a while, they moved locations, and they would watch movies at home, but they would always be drinking, having really deep drunken conversations that they couldn't recall the next morning. But there still seems to be this common theme — they needed alcohol to have a good time together.

So after about six months of this shaky "relationship," she had to stop drinking (long story, don't ask). Uh oh. You can imagine what happened. She was unhappily sober, and he would stop over after the bar to say "hi."

Soon she realized she was the booty call and said, "Smell you later, buddy."

Now this can also go for relationships that have already been established. Whenever my friend Chris and her boyfriend drink, they always fight over the stupidest things.

I think last week it was over who was spending the night where and why it was such an issue in the first place. They know they get along fine when sober, but they still drink, knowing the outcome will be someone leaving in a rage only to follow the angry one an hour later.

Why don't they stop? Well, because it's cool and fun to drink, apparently. Fun for couples or just random people hooking up while having the best drunken time of their lives, or so they think at the time.

It is somehow really cool to be staggering down the street barely holding on to one another, yelling at the top of your lungs about the pretty lights and smelling like formaldehyde from a mile away. Americans have this "must-get-loaded" mentality and the critics are right — it's quite disturbing and immature.

It's what contributes to some of these dysfunctional relationships we all know too well, either because we've had one ourselves or our friends have attempted to have them.

A few drinks on a date are OK once in a while. But becoming sloppy drunk and expecting a relationship is insane. You've gotta take off those beer goggles in order to know what is really going on. And trust me, without those damn goggles, life is much clearer.