The Art of Conversation - Catherine Blyth [65]
➺ Rule two: The style of approach advertises, or masks, the game being played
Different means signal different ends, and ignorance is no defense if hints are misinterpreted. Flirty G. B. Shaw reported how E. Nesbit, the nice lady who wrote The Railway Children, chastised him (after “I refused to let her commit adultery with me”):
“You had no right to write the Preface if you were not going to write the book.”
So pick tactics, including pace, advisedly. Play slow, for risk assessment and research, if intentions are serious, but if intentions are light, so should talk be. Discreet messages are deeply influential since they establish terms of engagement. For instance, scotching the competition is an important element of the game and, argued psychologist David M. Buss, a heterosexual woman looking for a quickie should tell the object of her desires that a rival is a “tease” (by implication, she isn’t). However, for a slow-burn amour, better call her a slut.
First, get his or her attention. There are two options: overt and covert. One sends up flares, the other issues ambiguous smoke signals. Different means, very different ends....
LOVE BOMBS
We’ve a rich tradition to draw on: Half of literature’s pearls coalesced around the gritty challenge of breaking a chaste resolve. “Had we but World enough, and Time,” Andrew Marvell’s narrator chides his “coy mistress,”
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine Eyes . . . But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd Charriot hurrying near
“Get a move on” never sounded so gorgeous. But how many more masterpieces will be written, in the West anyway, to beg a woman to strip? The obstacle race from lust to bed seems so short, with both sexes free to play for whomsoever they like. Still, transmitting the spark of interest, in spark-sparking style, hard enough when a boy had to traverse a ballroom to ask a girl the pleasure—and trek back to his laughing mates if she turned him down—seems little easier in the mosh pit. The Arctic Monkeys devote a song to the anguish of uttering a first word to a “future bride” on the dance floor (as if she could hear it).
For such dilemmas are pick-up lines, fishing hooks to snag attention and, in theory, lead to where up-chatters wish to go. Although the strategy—disarm by surprise—is sound, gambits tend to the crude, and always have.
In 1661, John Gough celebrated the end of the Puritans and licentiousness’s return with Charles II’s ball and scepter by publishing The Academy of Complements, a treasury of thesaurus-varnished lust for youths who’d witnessed little public flirting. In it, breasts are “twins where Lillies grow,” “Ivory balls of listing pleasure,” or “soft Pillows of love.” (Do you like that positive visualization, steering her mind to bed?)
➺ Rule three: Use outrageous pick-ups for fast-food love
The logic of a ready-baked pick-up is it takes pressure off the picker-upper, putting it on the picker-uppee to joke back. Alas, this is slightly flawed. Asked to perform, the logical response must be “Why should I?” How many strangers are game for instant verbal Ping-Pong?
Writer Toby Young went to mortifying lengths to find out, donning a surf-dude wig and brandishing ten lines from How to Pick Up Girls in ten Manhattan hot spots. Finally, in desperation, he whipped out the humdinger:
“Are those space pants you’re wearing?” I enquired. “Because your arse is out of this world.”
She gave me a look of total amazement: Did you really just say what I think you said? Then, miraculously, she started smiling.
“That’s the worst line I’ve ever heard,” she laughed. “I can’t believe you’ve ever picked up a girl using that line.”
“You’re right,” I responded. “I haven’t.” Then, just as I was about to walk away, my new, be-wigged personality took over. I fixed her with an unflinching stare: “Until now, baby.”
A triumph, thanks to his quick quip. So much for the easy option.
A knock-back