Beauty Or Brains: Asheville Trivia Nights

Beauty or brains? As a single man in Asheville, there’s no contest. Definitely brains. I am turned on by women who wear glasses with hair pulled back into a pony tail – it’s the stereotype of brainy. Either they are bent over their laptops busily typing away in a local coffee shop like Summit Coffee or High Five Coffee – pushing down on the keyboard with intellectual purpose. Or it’s having a drink in an elusive cocktail bar in the River Arts District and having a discussion for hours about what she is passionate about. What she wants to do to change the world. Or there’s trivia night….

Summit Coffee. Photo credit: Jen Brooks

Seeing that cutie rack up the points from knowing answers to Science, Pop Culture, Famous Authors, or History means she is definitely date material. If you are a couple, trivia nights help make an ordinary week day extraordinary while using the brain cells that you are killing dependent on how good the local IPAs are.

Asheville has several trivia nights across the city such as Geeks Who Drink, Dr. Brown’s Team Trivia and local brewery trivia challenges that bring together university professors to do the battle of the brains.

Team Trivia at Twin Leaf Brewing. Photo credit via Instagram: @twinleafbeer

But disclaimer, I am the host to a weekly trivia challenge that takes it up a notch – one that you can actually win money, fame and fortune and be the brainiest in the land:  Team Trivia is a national franchise that focuses on creating competitive local teams that compete for region and later national.  The trivia questions cover everything from Books, Magazines, Films, Politics, Science and on and on.

I host the Team Trivia shows at Southern Porch Bar and Restaurant in Canton, North Carolina every Wednesday from 7-9 PM and there is nothing like sitting out on the old 1880s patio ordering local brews and Southern home cooking delicacies with a group of friends and family and showing how intelligent you are. Or not.

Wednesday is trivia night at Southern Porch, downtown Canton. Photo credit: Aranzazu Zuloaga

I have noticed that after the drinks begin arriving to tables the more mistakes the teams begin to make.  The reason isn’t what you think it is. The drunker the team gets they tend to stop trusting their gut and/or intuition. Also men on a team become more vocal than their female counterparts. However, the answers by their female teammates are usually 80% correct. But the men tend to become 80% more passionate when intoxicated about getting the team to follow their incorrect answers.

I have also found that all female teams – unless they are on third round of wine – tend to kick the butt of all the other teams. Also women when they begin a winning streak, get more competitive than their male counterparts. For these women, winning becomes personal.

The more the merrier doesn’t tend to win trivia.  Some of the trivia teams are made up of two people and some of the teams are made up of a dozen or more. Some people complain that having a big team gives an unfair advantage.  But actually it’s the opposite:  the bigger the team the more group think takes over and more points are lost.

I have also been witness to first dates on trivia nights.  And it’s fun to watch the interaction between two strangers trying to get to know each other while competing against others.  There is a team that plays every week at Southern Porch named “Thought This Was Speed Dating” whose relationship has evolved from being meek and cute from their first date to now having a personal vendetta to beat all the other competing ten teams.   When they win, they make out.

So the question for everyone remains, beauty or brains? When it comes to trivia nights, it’s nothing sexier than crushing the intellect of others with the one you have a crush on.

 

Feature image credit: Yelp


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