“When you’re romantic but you’re a failure in chemistry.”

SOURCE: STEP FEED

BY: MARIAM NABBOUT

Let’s be real, Arabs have some majestic pickup lines that sometimes are seasonal – hello, Ramadan *wink wink*. However, this isn’t the case every single time. Sometimes, you get to witness sad and cringeworthy ones that leave you banging your head against the wall, looking for a way out.

Well, dear readers, your way out could be “inaccurate” pickup lines.

Plastered on a wall in some Arab restaurant, a pickup line reads: “You’re the carbon dioxide that I breathe.”

“When you’re romantic but you’re a failure in chemistry.” 

The reason why the restaurant’s sign butchered chemistry – and, ultimately, would butcher human beings if they are to inhale large quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2) – is the following:

Human beings breathe in “78 per cent nitrogen, 21 per cent oxygen [O2], 0.965 per cent argon and 0.04 per cent carbon dioxide (plus some helium, water and other gases).” We exhale “roughly 78 per cent nitrogen, 15 to 18 per cent oxygen (we retain only a small amount), 4 to 5 per cent carbon dioxide and 0.96 per cent argon, the CO2 being of course used by plants during photosynthesis.”

CO2 is generally not a toxic gas, but the quantity at stake could make the difference – much like with O2. If one is to inhale, let’s say, 5 percent of CO2, they will be faced with a respiratory failure. Double that percentage and death enters the picture.

Now, are you sure, dear restaurant sign, that you want to be romantic by comparing your loved one to a gas we only inhale 0.04 percent of?

To be fair, the O2 wouldn’t have worked either …

“You’re carbon dioxide and I want to breathe.”