Friday, March 30, 2012

Bethany, Befuddled

Pick up lines so totally befuddle me.

I remember once, in my confused twenties, heading out to a concert where I knew my crush was going to be. I took special care with my appearance that day; I spent all of 10 minutes applying some colored muck to my face, and adding a fancily-folded bandana to my head (yes, this was when fancy dress meant rockabilly to me). Then it was on to Thee Parkside, where I stood out like two-dollar hooker among the t-shirts and ripped jeans.

"Hey," the guy next to me at the bar (not my crush, he was off at the front of the crowd with a cute little girl in a Ramones t-shirt and a pixie haircut) said. "You look really good tonight. So, like, how long did that" - a muddled hand gesture in front of his face - "take you to do?"

Maybe it's just that the guys who try to pick me up don't have the best lines. I was also once complimented on my eyebrows.

"Really, they look great, all... natural. I admire a girl who doesn't mind letting things like that go."

Sometimes they are so bad that I actually wonder if the dude is trying to offend me. Which never works. It mostly just cracks me up.

"So I know your standards are usually higher, but, you know, it's been a while since (ex-boyfriend) left town, you must be, you know, and I just wanted to see if you wanted to hook up."

But these are depressing. So instead, I'll just share my favorite pick-up-line story, one that is not my own. This is borrowed from the husband of one of my best friends. When he was 10 or 11, his older brother took him out to the City to teach him how to pick up women. And you know what? When an adorable little kid yells at you from across the street, "Baby! Baby, you stepped on something! My HEART!" it sure as heck works.

(okay, works in that you're flattered and go, "awww," not works in that he actually succeeds in picking you up. I don't think pick-up linesever work that way.)

Bethany Herron is an urban fantasy writer, freight-train conductor, and RWA Board Member living in the Bay Area. She has the blessed fortune to be connected to the Pens by blood, and blogs at http://jujuwiz.wordpress.com.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm bleary-eyed before coffee this morning, so thanks for the laugh to wake me up!

--Gigi

Juliet Blackwell said...

hahaha! Baby, you just stepped on my HEART! Love this!
oh, and about the eyebrow thing? pretty sure it was a compliment. even noticing such things is complimentary for most guys ;-)

L.G.C. Smith said...

Too funny! After the past two weeks of posts, I'm beginning to think that whenever young (defined broadly at both ends of the spectrum) males talk to women they don't know it's an attempt at some sort of pick-up. All of this makes me wonder: are women likewise as clueless/crass/silly/shallow as men when picking up other women?