film / tv / substack / social media / lists / web / celeb / pajiba love / misc / about / cbr
film / tv / substack / web / celeb

princessbride.jpg

What's The Worst Pick Up Line You've Ever Heard?

By Tori Preston | Miscellaneous | February 13, 2018 |

By Tori Preston | Miscellaneous | February 13, 2018 |


princessbride.jpg

Well, here we are. It’s the day before Valentine’s Day. Which is meaningless, except that everywhere you look there’ll be hearts and flowers and other reminders that YOU SHOULD BE THINKING OF ROMANCE RIGHT NOW. If you have a partner, great. Just think of them! Or maybe you’ve found a date, just for the night. That’s cool too! But if you don’t, and you haven’t… well, therein lies the rub, amirite? What can YOU do to celebrate this saccharine day of extravagant gestures designed to convince yourself that we’re not all just going to die alone anyway? Well, I’ve got an idea: Let’s share the worst pick up lines we’ve ever gotten!

From the obvious to the pathetic to the borderline insane, at some point somebody has probably tried to get in your pants using a tactic that (hopefully) you’re able to laugh about now. Hell, maybe it even worked (#nojudgement). But whatever it was, it probably wasn’t as sweet as Westley’s “As you wish” line in The Princess Bride. I mean, nothing is really. And the great thing about bad pick up lines is that they remind us all that sometimes, romance just isn’t fucking worth it.

I’ve had guys try some really weird pick up lines on me. Once, in college, I had a dude inform me that he lived in a building behind me, and in fact I could probably watch him masturbate from my window if I tried. It was a statement of fact that doubled as an invitation, methinks. Another time a drunk guy in a bar struck up a conversation with me by leaning in and telling me I smelled incredible, like something he couldn’t put his finger on. I told him I’d taken a shower. His response?

“Yeah. I like girls who bathe.”

He then tried to impress me with tales of his drug-addled career as a paramedic in LA. “There were so many shootin’s ‘n shit, the back of the ambulance would fill up with blood this deep” — he gestured a space of about 5 inches with his right hand and an outstretched finger from his left, which was mostly concerned with holding his beer — “and I would be in the front hooked up to an oxygen machine to keep me conscious and driving, cuz I was so fucked up on coke. So, you know, I kinda got burnt out after 6 months… and then I moved to Vegas.”

Can you believe I didn’t go home with him?!

But my best worst pick up experience happened on an Amtrak train in the middle of the afternoon, which is about the least sexiest possible location outside of, I dunno, a morgue? Your grandparent’s bedroom with the two twin beds and denture tray? A shark cage? Anyway, here’s what happened:

I was on my way from to Vermont from New York City. I think it was for a funeral or something, which is why I was traveling on a Wednesday. And this tall dude in suit is sitting across the aisle from me, doing that semi-subtle thing where he sneaks glances but like I’m 3 feet away, bro — I CAN SEE YOU. So I ignore him, which is my go-to response to most everything, and finally he strikes up a conversation by asking me what I’m doing on an Amtrak train outta NYC in the middle of the week. It’s clear he’s trying to suss out if I’m getting off at his stop (Albany), so I make it clear that I’m not. Playing the “mountain funeral” boner killer card as hard as I can. But then, because he’s kinda hot and I’m friendly, I return the favor and ask him what he’s doing on an Amtrak train in the middle of the week.

“Oh, well I work at (insert big corporation), which is based outside Albany. I was in NYC because I had to be in court yesterday.”

“Oh really?” I asked. “How come?”

“I was arrested for public urination.”

Now. I could fill you in on the story, which naturally involved a drunk night, a traffic jam, and, you know, pissing in public. But I think the moral here is that a) that’s a ridiculous thing to tell someone in pursuit of a phone number, and b) IT WORKED. I gave him my number. I even went on a (single) date with him. It… was weird. But still, the absolute guts on that guy, to tell a chick that you’re sitting next to her, hitting on her, because you’d just gone to court for public urination. It was so weirdly impressive!

It should be noted that he encountered me during a particularly low point in my love life. I mean, obviously.

Meanwhile, now I’m married and this morning my husband walked into my office, gave me a kiss and a lingering hug, and said, “Hey, did you know that the concept of suffering is built into the human consciousness?” Ah, romance.

How about you? What’s the funniest, saddest, or most ridiculous way anyone has hit on you?