Well, with my husband, I never had to flirt, per ce. He approached me in a bar, and I was just gobsmacked when I looked into his clear, crystal blue eyes and saw the innate laughter in them. He seemed equally captivated with me, and later said it was the fierce intelligence (his words, not mine, I swear) he saw in my eyes that got to him. It was a done deal from there on out.
Really, I've never been much of a flirt. That may explain why I didn't date much in college. When I saw someone I really wanted, I was just relatively direct about it. But I picked my targets very carefully - no way would I make myself vulnerable to a guy I really had a thing for. I asked the one who became my boyfriend all through high school and Freshman year of college out at a high school dance. We had this Sadie Hawkings type tradition where if you liked a guy on the football team, you asked him if you could wear his team jersey on Jersday Day during Homecoming Week. Yes, corny as hell, but true. At the dance shortly before Homecoming Week, I asked a mutual friend if anyone had asked him yet. She said, "No. And you definitely should." When the really very good cover band started playing The Cars' "You're All I Got Tonight," I figured it was time to make my move. I marched right over to him in front of all his friends and very calmly said, "Hi. I was just wondering if I could wear your jersey next week." He said, "Hell, yeah!" Turned out he'd liked me all along and was trying to figure out a way to "trick" me into asking him. In college, I liked a bartender at my favorite watering hole. So I parked myself there from time to time when he was working. We were both from the same area of New York State and had a similar upbringing and tastes, so we had a lot to talk about, and he enjoyed ongoing friendly company while he was working. We smoked the same brand of cigarettes (yes, I was a smoker in a past life - still am a closet one, I'm afraid), and he'd always light mine in a very movie-esque sort of way - sometimes by breaking out his custom-made lighter with a flourish, sometimes by lighting two and handing me one (that's when I knew he was *really* getting into it).
Then there was the one right before I met my husband. Or should I say The One. I was so enamored of him that I actually stayed away a lot when I could have been hanging with him in a friendly manner, because I was afraid my emotions would betray me and he'd reject me. I came to find out from him that my staying away was what got to him. A couple other girls at work pursued him relentlessly, and that just irritated him ultimately. But I was a mystery to him - does she want me or not? What's funny is it's nothing I did on purpose, at least not in the sense of purposely trying to play head games with him - it's what I did out of self-preservation.
No one's ever tried to pick me up, per ce, in a bar except my husband. And he succeeded just by saying something really stupid, because all it took was that one look in his eyes. He could have said "Ya come here often?" and it would have been enough. For the record, I was wearing a Syracuse University sweatshirt with a denim mini-skirt, and he goes, "So. Where'd you go to school?" The stupid thing about it was I didn't go to Syracuse. Just liked the sweatshirt. But it was meant to be, I guess, because we quickly got past that first bit of awkwardness.
Pick up lines I've always wanted to try (if I were a different kind of person):
How do you like your eggs?
Do you believe in love at first sight? No? Lemme walk by again.
Is it hot in here or is it just you?
Oh, and Leslie, you're my new hero.
