Pick-up lines have come a long way since the smarmy stylings of "What's your sign?" and "Come here often?" These quirky icebreakers suffer from a bad rap -- and unfairly so. They can be smart (and sometimes silly) conversation starters. Here are tried-and-and-oft-true approaches from the people who sit next to you on the bus and pass you on the street. Some gradually ease into the pick up, others are more bold and direct, but all of them opened up lines of conversation. Which is the whole point. Nancy Kirsch, senior vice president of It's Just Lunch, a matchmaking service that sets up would-be couples for a maiden-voyage lunch, says that whether it's your first conversation or your first date, the key is keeping things light and upbeat. "No one wants to hear about your ex or how much you hate your job," Kirsch instructs. "Listening is a great skill to have." I was at a pool party in Los Angeles. Typical singles mayhem: drinking, flirting and lots of sizing up the opposite sex. I swam over to Maureen, a woman I worked with. I asked her if she wanted to race across the pool. She grinned and said yes without hesitation. I was a little taken aback and tried to be amusing, telling her I was on a neighborhood swim team, the Sharks, when I was a kid. "Everyone feared the Sharks," I bragged, and offered to give her the lead. She laughed, refused and said, "Let's race. Down and back." She was already into her flip turn before I could get halfway across the pool. As it turned out, she was a college swimmer. But she married me anyway. -- Mike McCarthy, 42, Fairfax (By Jennifer Borton -- Istockphoto.com) Save & Share Tag This Article Saving options 1. Save to description: Headline (required) 2. Save to notes (255 character max): Blurb 3. Tag This Article While in line for the bathroom at a bar, I complimented one of the girls in front of me on her outfit (not really a line because she looked great). I didn't really say much after that, but that gave me an opening to talk to her later in the night. I made my move an hour later when I saw her alone at the bar getting a drink. I just said, "Hi, how are you?" assuming that she would remember me. She did and I introduced myself, made a dumb joke about the bathroom line and we ended up talking and hanging out the rest of the evening. We had a first date about a week later.
-- Eric Holbrook, 32, Washington I picked up my boyfriend Jason at a bar. He was wearing a light pink, short-sleeved button-down, so I told him, "It takes a confident man to wear a pink shirt." He thought I was making fun of him and said "I like my pink shirt." But I was truly taken. We just continued on with small talk, but our eyes were locked the whole night. We've been together ever since.
-- Lorrie Belford, 23, Fairfax My friend and I were at a bar talking about toasters. How does a toaster work? Is it the coils or the heat? Do you even like toasters, or toast for that matter? A girl comes to order a drink, and I ask, "Do you know how a toaster works?" My friend does the same thing with another lady. My girl shuts me down, gives me "the look," and turns away. But my friend's girl likes it, thinks it's quirky. She's there with her friends and takes us over to them, introducing us as "the toaster boys." While my friend ended up getting booted, one girl in the group took a liking to me and we went on a couple of dates. The non sequitur lowest-common-denominator conversation piece has helped me out ever since. It's all in the delivery. -- Tait Miller, 26, Washington
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