A Great Pick-Up Line

Pick-up lines … the holy grail of dating, some seem to think. I'm often asked by guys – nice, intelligent, funny, good-looking single guys – what pick-up line I think they should use. Getting to talk to an interesting, attractive stranger in a public place is a scary thing. The risk of rejection is great, coming across as a total idiot, even greater.

The thing is, it really doesn't matter what you say, does it? As long as you make the move, you're in with at least an outside chance. She'll either like you or not, and her decision to treat you to her best beaming smile, or her most scornful eye-roll, will have been made before you even opened your mouth. Neither you nor she is likely to know what the decision was based on. It's a mystery something or other that can never be pinpointed. Later, when you gaze into her eyes and say 'Why did you smile at me that night at the bar?' she'll try to explain it by saying that she liked your smile, or some such thing. Truth is, no one knows why we are attracted to one person and not another. Call it simple chemistry, if you will, or alchemy.

And so your tentative, heart-in-mouth attempt at a pick-up line, such as, maybe, 'Could I borrow your cell phone please? I'd like to call God and tell him he's lost an angel' could see you standing alone and forlorn, frozen out of the inner circle of attractive women for the rest of the evening. Or it could end in wedding bells a year later. No one knows.

If she likes you, she likes you, and she will be only to grateful that you broke the ice and gave her the opportunity of getting to know you. If she doesn't like you, shrug and move on. Someone else will.

~ by ReluctantRunner on September 3, 2010.