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Wednesday, January 10, 2007

You Had Me At "Tooheys"

I love pick-up lines. Not the hackneyed, vomitous old chestnuts like "If I told you you had a great body, would you hold it against me?", or the more contemporary pearlers like "I like what you're wearing. That'd look really good on my floor".
No. I like stupid ones. Opening lines that aren't really meant to be lines, but that hang there in the air like a levitating vacuum cleaner, just sucking.

Years ago, I worked at a club in Darlinghurst. My shift routinely finished an hour before the club closed, so I'd grab a magazine and a drink and sit quietly, waiting for the doors to close so I could commence slaughtering my workmates on the pool table on the ground floor during staff drinks. At this time of night, the male/female patron ratio was about eight to one. Unfortunately, to drunk guys at 2am who were rapidly running out of desperate take-home partner options, I was a sitting freakin' duck. I could have had missing teeth and open, weeping sores on my face, and I still would have been able to go home with the ugly pissed idiot of my choice – it was just mathematics.
Reading quietly one night, I noticed the silhouette of a mildly stumbling gentleman approaching in my peripheral vision. Whilst I kept my head down, staring fixedly at the page and taking a sip from my beer, he came and stood right next to me, nodding the diagonal nod of a person about to start a potentially disastrous conversation.
"So….." he started, causing me to eventually look up, eyebrow raised and body tensed, waiting for whatever came next.
"….. you drink Tooheys Dry, eh?" he continued, nodding towards my beer.
I stared at him blankly for a second, and, realising he had nothing more to say, hesitated a moment more before answering "Yep".
Then – something that almost made me completely change my mind about the guy – he looked down at his feet, shook his head, and said "Yeah. Sorry. That was shockin'", and turned and walked out of the club.
Bless 'im. It was the stupidest line in the history of time, but at least he knew it.

Maybe the crap, ill-conceived pick-up line is the way to go after all.

A couple of weeks ago, I was having a drink at my local with friends, and admiring a tall, handsome gentleman at the other end of the room. I managed to catch his eye a couple of times, but it was getting late, and I'm a complete gutless coward when it comes to doing any actual spadework myself, so when he disappeared, I decided it was probably time for me to go home.
I stopped in at a convenience store on the way home to get some bread, and lo and behold – the tall, handsome gentleman was in the line before me! Should I say something? I'd kick myself if I didn't. But what to say? I was completely out of practice at this sort of thing, and time was running out as his purchase was winding up.
Without enough time to think of anything good, I turned to him, cleared my throat, and said "You were at the pub".
Crap. Awkward moment of silence crap. Considering dropping the bread and bolting crap.
Then he said "Yes, I was. I'm about to go back there, too. Would you like to join me for a drink?"

Viva la dumb-arsed, borderline-illiterate pick-up line.

There must be more of these. Please leave a comment if you've been either a victim or a perpetrator of the sucky pick-up line.
Please especially leave a comment if it was me that said it.

7 comments:

PetStarr said...

I'm so excited that line worked! Top job.

Jo said...

Ta.
I'm trying to think of some new, equally-lame ones to use in the future.
Some possibilities are:
- "Hey! Your sleeves are the same length!"
- "Excuse me - where's the toilet?"
- "Look! A cloud!"


I'm such a saucy minx I can't stand myself.

londongirl said...

Loved the lame lines - but as you saw from fit man, lame lines can be salvaged if the other wants to...

How about "you're really tall" or "you're wearing jeans" or some other stating the obvious line.

redcap said...

Well, in the crapo, levitating vacuum cleaner stakes (which was an exceptionally good line, I might add), you have to admit that, "You were at the pub" wasn't quite as bad as, "You're drinking Toohey's Dry". That's a bit like those wankers who say, "You've had a haircut!" At such moments, I like to clutch my head, look panicked and scream, "Bastards! They must have done it while I was sleeping! Again!"

But more to the point, was it a successful drink? Did it involve an exchange of phone numbers, etc.?

James said...

So... did it work? Did you go back there?

Jo said...

Drink: check.
Phone numbers exchanged: check.
Told him I had a blog: check.
Possibility he's reading this: check.
Resulting sparsity of actual information or detail: Check, please!

shellity said...

I believe I was with you, although I can't recall where, when a young gentleman of the 'Grik' persuasion sauntered over and said, "So. Out tonight, ladies?"
Hanging in the air with imminent suckiness? Check.