6 Flirting Moves That Every Man (And Woman) Should Know
These can help you avoid looking creepy and make you put your best foot forward.
“You see, my daughter died and now I need a replacement. Wanna make a new one?” my friend Jamie* said right before the woman threw a drink in his face.
He regaled me with his experience putting the moves on girls at the bar and he was flummoxed when this pickup line didn’t work. I sat there, trying to hold my laughter. This was both a bad and incredibly tone-deaf idea he had.
“My dude, do you think babies are lightbulbs or something?” I asked. “You don’t just have a replacement baby, you dumbass.”
“I thought it’d make me sound sensitive and shit,” he said.
“No, it did the opposite. You sounded like a sociopath,” I said.
This remains one of my most notorious stories about my time spent advising my guyfriends on dating and flirting. My guys generally mean well, but they don’t always realize how they come across.
Truthfully, none of us can always figure out how we sound 24/7. As a person who has watched a lot of guys come across as creepy when they didn’t mean to, I feel I should offer some tips on how to flirt in a way that’s both fun and empowering.
Give the person your number, don’t ask for theirs.
First things first, let’s talk about the awkwardness of asking a person to give you their number. Having been on the receiving end of that, I can tell you that there is nothing worse than feeling cornered by someone you’re not totally into.
Beging and cajoling your way into someone’s phone is not a win. It’s a pyrrhic victory and it’s a good way to get a bad rap with people. A better way to do this is to just give them your number. Don’t ask the person to call you right then and there.
A person who is interested will text you and call you. A person who isn’t won’t, and if you don’t pressure them, they won’t warn others about how pushy you get. It’s an easy way to remove the pressure and avoid forcing a blunt rejection out of people.