The Art of Conversation - Catherine Blyth [66]
Having to lobby so relentlessly to secure a pet [gerbil] set me in good stead in later life when seducing pious women. “Please take your bra off! Please?” “Can I see your bottom? Oh go on?”
All the same, his Byron-nicked-my-eyeliner good looks must have helped.
A love-bomber who doesn’t want to rule out long-term romance should keep it simple, using an ice-breaker, ridiculous flattery, or an off-center remark, avoiding the quick-fire banter conundrum by coming armed with a follow-up. Ask for a dance or buy a drink, and immediately you can ease into a gentler pace of talk.
Try to surprise. A creep I knew enjoyed fiendish success congratulating women’s dainty teeth and ears, and publisher George Weidenfeld, whose conquests some considered disproportionate to his appeal (and allegedly furry derriere), used tactical psychology, praising intelligent ladies’ beauty, and vice versa. Psychologists concur that gorgeous women seem to lack faith in their other strengths. Apparently this is not a problem for beauteous males; make of that what you will.
SMOKE SIGNALS
I offer no pick-up lines from women because I found so few.
Possibly because until recent decades women were under parental lock and key, possibly they were too shrewd to be overheard, but more likely because pick-up lines are the bastard progeny of courtly romance, of lovelorn swains hurling gravel at flint-hearted Madonnas atop unassailable pedestals, whereas women have their own tradition of strategizing with friends that starts in school.
Although clucks of hen-nighters aren’t averse to heckling a hotty, and mores are changing, when looking for long-term action, females remain pickier mate-hunters than men, and by adulthood they’ve invested many hours in decoding and programming would-be loved ones. After this relationship homework, a bias against pick-up lines is understandable.
➺ Rule four: You’re never sure an artful flirt is flirting, but you should want to be
A pick-up line is as rude as a pinch on the butt, pushing for intimacy, yet leaving choice to the other person. So the picker-upper isn’t only vulnerable, but he ditches seduction’s mightiest weapon: doubt. Whereas, flirting evokes a fugitive sense that intimacy might be possible.
It is an illusion any can nurture. The top-flight courtesan’s true genius was surely in her reverse-sell, persuading clients she must be persuaded to tumble—and it was true; the best had their pick of suitors. And super-cocky male Jack Nicholson favors anti-pick-up lines, decanting the confidence of Hollywood sylphs with corkers like “When did you get pregnant?”
➺ Rule five: Activate their interest by looking ready to be interested
To begin a flirtation, attract attention without showing your hand. The best signal of availability to talk was “Do you have a light?” Then, as eyes locked over the flame . . .
Smoking, rest in peace. Fitness lovers should buy a dog. Strangers happily coddle and compliment by proxy, so make yours a pat-able pet avatar.
Lesser substitutes include handing around refreshments at a party. Elsewhere, ask the time or where you can leave a coat. Or place yourself in the room’s liminal zones, near food and booze. Don’t look lonely: Talk to someone who makes you laugh.
Try an “accidental” eye-clinch. Move into the target’s sightline, then do what anthropologists lyrically term allogrooming—i.e., twiddle your hair, lengthening the torso and narrowing the waist. (Men not blessed with Samsonesque lovelocks may fiddle with their collar.) Now catch the target’s gaze, hold it a moment. Later, do it again and smile.
Just agitating your body can be enough. I watched actress Kristin Scott Thomas unman the Wolseley Restaurant with a feline stretch, and a minx do something horribly effective involving