Pick Up Lines

I don't usually specify who I'm writing to in my blogs, as I am usually writing to anyone who wants to be reading, but this post is for a specific audience. This is addressed to all the young men reading this blog who are single and looking.

I don't know about you, but when I was in youth group, and even in college, every once in a while the subject of pick up lines would come up, and the guys would go around trying out pick up lines on the girls: "I would part the Red Sea for you", "Did it hurt? When you fell from heaven?", "I was reading the book of Numbers and realized that yours is missing", and other things like that. Not that I'm a big fan of pick up lines, but having had the experience of being on the receiving end of quite a number of them, I thought I'd share some with you as kind of a 'what-not-to-say' type thing.

A while ago, I was walking my bike along the side of the road heading to a friend's place when I heard a car slowing down behind me. Looking over, the man was rolling down his window. He leaned his head out and remarked "I like the way you ride your bike. Where do you live? We should hang out sometime. Can I have your number?"
'What's wrong with this?' you might ask. He asks questions. He compliments. Those are both good things...except that he's complimenting me on something that I'm not actually doing, and the questions ask for too much information too soon.

The other day I was coming out of the library when I was approached by a young man. "Can I use your phone to call my grandma?" he asked. "I need to check in on her, and then get your number yet too."
He was off to a great start, bringing his grandma into the conversation, because how a man treats the women in his family lets us see how he might treat his future girlfriend/wife someday. But, gentlemen, if you're asking to use someone's phone, make sure your phone doesn't start ringing as you're asking. That really discredits anything else you say.

And then today I was walking home from church. I walked around a car that was waiting to merge from a parking lot into traffic, and as I kept going I heard the man open his door and call after me. Assuming he was offering me a ride (which is usually the case in this situation), I yelled over my shoulder that, no thank-you, I was good. He must have realized that I had no idea what he said, because at the next intersection, there was the same grey sedan waiting at the corner. I wasn't sure what to do at first, but the man hadn't been crass when he addressed me the first time, so I just walked around the car again and was going to keep on going when he called to me again. This time I stopped and turned around to see what he had to say, and it came out something like this: "I ain't tryin' to stalk you o' anything miss, but I think yo kinda cute. If you give me yo number we could hang sometime."
Yes, he was polite. But gentlemen, if you have to frame what you are saying by clarifying that you're not a stalker, you might want to rethink either the timing of what you're saying, or if you should be saying it at all.

All of these men incorporated something good in their pick up intents, but the end result was just not a positive result. So learn well from their mistakes.... And don't hit on random girls you see walking down the street. Please.