I had the great privilege of accompanying my nice local friend “A” to the pub recently with two of her nice friends. As usual, we spoke in hushed tones so as not to attract the disgust, confusion and anger of the low-brow yokels who consider anything over two syllables as a personal insult to their culture and a straight-up declaration of war.
As usual, we spent hours pontificated endlessly about a great many subjects on which none of us really had the authority to debate. Least of all me, for though I talk a big game, I”m actually a bit of a philistine. But that’’s for another time.
Before too long, it struck me that I don”t often have the opportunity to talk to three intelligent “mature” (by which I mean old, but by putting it in speech marks I”m hoping it will seem less offensive; -though this little aside has completely crapped on that one…) ladies about male/female bar etiquette, flirting and “pulling”.
What I wanted to know was how women (over 30′’s) feel about chat-up lines; and which ones work and which ones don”t.
The standard response is “They”re cheesy and they don”t work.”
I was prepared for this answer.
The thing is: I”ve seen them work. I could never pull it off; I don”t have that suave charm, (I”m more Woody Allen than George Clooney) but I”ve known men who have managed to pull -just using a line. Sometimes a f***ing horrific, insulting line too. The kind of line which would land me with a black-eye, ruptured testicle, night in a cell and a criminal record.
What makes a line work? The ladies suggested it wasn”t the line at all, but the confidence and all that bullshit that I don”t really believe. It must be partly about the line; no? I mean, it wouldn”t be very good to just go up to a girl in a pub and start speaking gibberish would it (it’’s never worked for me). So I got to thinking about what the lines that work have in common and I reached some interesting, though completely unfounded, conclusions.
1.) Chat-up lines are cheesy, yes, but that’’s the point. If you can pull a horrendously cheesy-sounding line out of the bag and then turn it into a joke right at the end, you”ve broken through a barrier and, hopefully, created a chuckle. As was discussed in “Rodger Dodger” -the single most sought-after quality in men by women is “sense of humour”.
So how about this: “Did someone take the stars from the skies and put them in your eyes? Cos I wanna take you home and *** your *** **** until you ****.”
Or something. You get the idea.
2.) The “yes ladder”. Not really a line, but stay with me on this one.
I want to make this completely clear- I have never managed to get this one to work. NEVER. That said, I read about it in an article in which a journalist used it successfully on Britney Spears (hot, late 90′’s-era Britney; not train-wreck, elephantine, I-wouldn”t-nail-that-if-you-paid-me Britney who looks like a plasticine model someone put in the microwave crossed with the deformed guy from the Goonies. What was his name again? Sloth?) The trick involves asking a series of questions to which you already know the answer is going to be “yes”. This is supposed to make your victim (you heard me) slip into a kind of sub-conscious yes-saying mindset which makes it easier to, you know, f*** them and stuff. My problem with this is that it makes me really, really boring. Thinking of questions which can only be answered with a “yes” is pretty hard; and unless your a body-language expert (which I”m not) I think this one’’s a non-starter.
3.) “Be yourself” is the response most women give when asked about how a man should best approach a strange woman. This doesn”t work if you”re a freak, so it’’s not even worth considering if you”re at all like me.
4.) Sleaze.
Be a horrendous chauvinist. Pick your target carefully, yes, but be as filthy as you possibly can. I”ve seen this work.
As I was thinking about this option, I thought I”d demonstrate on “A” to see what she made of my new idea for a line. I asked her to pretend she was a stranger and approached her, reaching for my wallet. I reached into my wallet and said: “I”ll give you £40 if you come home with me now.”
She was not impressed.
——-
So what did I learn? Very little, I was s***-faced by the time this happened (it took me a lot of negotiating to even get my demonstration £40 back). So what?! You don”t come here for wisdom anyway, you come to feel better about yourself by comparing my life to yours. And that’’s fine.
I”m done. Piss off now.
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