Thursday, Feb. 12, 2004 | 8:14 a.m.
10 Pickup lines to use and abuse
"My name is Justin. Justin Credible.
"I'm new in town. Can you give me directions to your apartment? I think I could fall madly in bed with you.
"So ... How am I doin'? I can sense that you're a terrific lover and it intimidates me a bit.
"Oh. Those are shoulder blades. I thought they were wings. ... Well, here I am. What were your other two wishes?"
Line up
Elaine Casale thought she had heard it all when a man approached her at a local bar and said, "I'm new in town. Could you give me directions to where you live?"
"I nearly passed out laughing," said Casale, who is the director of a local dating service. "I looked at him like, 'Are you for real?'"
Turns out he was. Though a little outdated, cheesy pickup lines have yet to disappear.
The "Where have you been all my life?" and "Heaven must be missing an angel" still linger in nightclubs and lounges where you might even hear, "I'm fighting the urge to make you the happiest woman on Earth tonight."
Some lines haven't changed "Is this seat taken?" while others are recycled and reissued, even when it's the last thing someone wants to hear.
"They'll say anything," Kellie Karl, a local actress and singer, said in reference to potential suitors.
"I've heard it all. A lot of times it's the whole, 'Oh you look so familiar.' But you know you've never seen the person before."
Sometimes, she said, their lines are more direct. At one local club a man approached Karl and said, "You seem like such a classy girl. My wife and I would really like you."
Twenty-two-year-old Matt Browski, a University of Nevada, Las Vegas student, scoffs at the idea of using a pickup line, as do his friends. So for those seeking a Valentine this weekend, Browski suggests losing the line.
"The odds are maybe one girl out of a hundred will fall for it," Browski said. "The best way to talk to them is to have a natural conversation."
But that doesn't always happen. And if it did, what graveyard could be big enough to bury such gems as, "Are those space pants you're wearing? Cuz' your booty is out of this world" or "They call me 'coffee.' I grind so fine."
Legendary lines
The Internet is an endless resource for pickup lines, even for such niche categories as Christians ("Nice Bible") and linguists ("Is that a dangling participle or are you just happy to see me?")
There are lines for Goth teens ("Hey you, you in the black!"), Bob Barker fans ("How'd you like a year's supply of Turtle Wax?") and geeks ("Nice set of floppies. Your home page or mine?")
For accountants, lists include "Nice assets" and "You're the kind of girl I could take home to mother, which is good, since I still live with her."
Even the website for Library Information and Science News offers a selection: "You have the tightest hair bun in the place," "I'd catalogue you under desirable" and "Mind if I check you out?"
"The underlying initial motive behind the use of many lines is conversation," said Matt Montoya, via e-mail. The graduate student at the University of North Carolina, who has compiled what is possibly the largest online database of pickup lines.
"Any line that can generate that response is a 'good' pickup line, whereas lines that fail to generate conversation are usually defined as bad lines," Montoya said.
He should know. His website, www.linesthataregood.com, has been visited nearly 2 million times. It features hundreds of pickup lines ranging from the ridiculous to the ridiculously offensive.
Between "The only thing your eyes haven't told me is your name" and "Do you come here often?" are "Just where do those legs of yours end?" and "All those curves and me with no brakes."
There are clever lines ("Pardon me, have you seen my missing Nobel Prize around here?") and absurd plays on words ("Your daddy must be a hunter because he sure caught a fox" and "Baby, if you were words on a page, you'd be what they call fine print!")
"I have even included some lines for the ladies," Montoya said.
Au natural
When asked if the pickup line is in danger of becoming obsolete, Montoya said, "I can tell you from personal experience that a good pickup line is your best bet ... I find that when approaching women quantity is better than quality. Therefore, I am constantly trying out new material." Just don't pitch a line to 25-year-old Amanda Trees, who says pickup lines are ridiculously old school and won't initiate conversation with her or any of her friends.
"If you use a pickup line, people are going to look at you like you're crazy," Trees said. "No matter what the pickup line is, it's going to be cheesy.
"One of the first things I say is 'Wow, you're pretty hot.' Skip the pickup line and tell him he's hot."
Browski says he too tries the straightforward approach.
"I just start a regular conversation, say, 'Hi. How are you?,' find out what they do, what their hobbies are. I ask them to dance, buy them a drink, whatever," he said.
Casale, an expert matchmaker in her 50s who tailors introductions to values, level of achievement, interests and looks, says nobody can get a line past her. She often cuts off the delivery mid-sentence.
"I'm too sharp," Casale said. "In the grocery store, they'll come up to you with something and say, 'Could you tell me how to make this?' I tell them, 'Go buy a cookbook.'
"If I tell them how to cook it, they say, 'You want to come over and make it?'
"The older generation, they're doing it to break the ice, they want to talk to you. Men who are real men don't need all that. The reason people come to the dating service is so they don't have to be around all that."
But Karl, who gets hit on at work, at grocery stores and even at gas stations, says it's unavoidable. And Mailee Turner, 23, a waitress at the Beach Nightclub, said that just the other day someone delivered her a line at work.
"He asked me how I was doing," Turner said. "I said, 'Fine.' He said, 'Well I know you're fine, but how are you doing?' "
Eighteen-year-old Will Brown groans at the idea of using a line.
"They're just kind of fake," Brown said. "I mean, if a guy walked up to you and said, 'Are you tired? Because you've been running through my mind," what would you say?"
Well, there's plenty. You could say, "You must be Jamaican, because Jamaican me crazy" or "I must be a snowflake, 'cuz I've fallen for you."
If that doesn't work, then crank up the charm. Try something eloquent, Shakespearean, even: "Shall I compare thee to a brick outhouse?"
Or, even better: "If I whispered in thine ear that you hadst a body of beauty unknown but to the heavens, wouldst thou hold it against me?"
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