Can I get yo numba?

Attention men of the world,

I'm pretty sure that most of you have gotten the memo on this already. But for the rest of you who were crowded around the water-cooler chatting and for some reason didn't hear the announcement over the PA system... pay attention:

Pick-up lines are jokes. They are things that groups friends say to make each other laugh. They are things thrown around in drinking games. And Categories.

You know the ones I mean:

"Are you a terrorist? 'Cause you da bomb!" "Are your legs tired? 'Cause you've been running through my mind all day!" And my personal favorite: "Baby, did you just fart? 'Cause you blew me away."

They are not, not, not, (let me reiterate) NOT a good way to get girls to go out with you, give you their phone number, or even speak to you.

I bring this point up because I recently met one of those memo-less water-cooler-dwellers at a party. A friend and I were casually chatting with someone we hadn't met before. People were dropping into the conversation and we thought nothing of it. Until one guy sidled over to me.

"Hey, you look familiar, have we met before?"
"I don't go to school up here so I don't think so." I spoke quickly, without really considering it. I'm generally pretty good with faces, if not names. He blinked, looked a little taken aback. It didn't occur to me that I had been expected to ponder it so that he'd be able to snap his fingers and exclaim wittily "Oh! I know where I've seen you before! In my dreams."

He abandoned that. "Oh. Well. Do you want to count shoulders with me real quick?"

I realized suddenly what had happened. He was using a pick-up line. Legitimately using a pick-up line as though it had some possibility of working.

Thankfully, this was one joke that I had heard before. Otherwise, I would have been put into the awkward predicament of having this stranger's arm around me. The punchline of this question involves him counting his own shoulders: "One. Two." He points to your shoulder; the one closest to him: "Three." And stretches his arm over you to land on: "Four."

I instead responded with an uncomfortable laugh. "Oh, no, I've heard this one before."

He walked away.

This kid wasn't terrible-looking. And granted, he probably wouldn't have gotten anything from me beyond some polite conversation regardless, but he didn't even get that.

Because he opened with a pick-up line.

Let this be a lesson to you all.
Jenuinely yours,
Jen