How many people here have ever successfully picked up someone in a bar/club, or been picked up themselves?
Stories of failures and mornings-after are most welcome. 
me: yes. this really hot guy just walked right up to me and started dancing with me. discovered later, after he sobered up, that he really was very intelligent. then… cut to today, we’re very good friends 
Being a little on the shy side as far as approaching members of the oposite sex, I haven’t done much picking up, myself, but there have been times that I have been picked up. The few times that has happened, the women have been surprised (or maybe disappointed in a few cases) to find that I have more respect for them and myself than to have sex on the first encounter. I have made a few friends this way, but not lasting friends. I have had a few thank me for the respect and care that I showed.
One of my favorites, several years ago, was a single mom named “Angel”. We left the bar with a group of mutual friends. One thing led to another and we ended up in bed together, kissing very passionately, and very much into each other. “Angel” started undoing my pants, thinking that sex was what I wanted, but I asked her to wait because we had both been drinking quite a bit and I didn’t want us to do somehing we would regret later. We kissed a bit more, and fell asleep comfortably holding each other, which was all I was looking for at the time.
Next morning: Her mother was staying with her, at the time, and obviously they were very close. “Angel” got up first, to tend to her kids, and her mother approached me after I woke up, telling me what a beautiful person I was and thanking me for handling the situation that way. That made my day and helped me realize that my values meant something to someone other than myself. I still wonder what happened to her, since we lost touch shortly after that, but the lesson is still there.
To this day, having old-fashioned values is something that I take pride in. (Plus, it is a good excuse to blame my shyness on. :))
I’ve been picked up before.
I suppse I’ve picked people up too, though I’ve never really use what you’d call a pick up line.
Is this Bill?
shhhhh! no names!!! That’s supposed to be my secret
Now, why aren’t you asleep, yet, dearie??
Because I have a paper to write and I’m addicted to #straightdope, though I wouldn’t admit it to them.
I once got digits from a woman I met in a bar. She seemed very interested in me at the time, but when I called her a few days later, she acted like she never heard of me before and didn’t know why I was asking her out.
I said “fuck you” in my most polite way and never called her again.
I’m a guy whose been picked up a couple of times.
'Course it really not hard picking up a guy.
The only place I’ve ever gotten a number is at a strip club. I took my best friend Drusie out for his 21st birthday, and decided to get him a little stripper action. Just for s&g you know?
Drusie’s having the time of his life. Getting all kinds of fake attention, so I’m sitting there, minding my business. Watching a buncha boobies that weren’t going home with me, when this dancer named Tracy (I learned her real name later) walks up to me.
“No thanks. I don’t want a dance.” I say before she can ask.
“Actually I was just hoping I could sit with you for a minute. I’m taking a break.” was her reply.
“Oh. I’m sorry. Sure. Have a seat.” I say thinking to myself, Great. She’s gonna sit here and ask me to buy her about 20 drinks, and I’m gonna have to tell her, No, and I don’t like doing that.
She sits down across the table from me and says, “It’s okay. I don’t want anything to drink.”
Now she’s reading my mind.
I talk to her for a while, and to make an already much too long story short, she ends up giving me her phone number. Now I’m astounded at this point. I’m not what you would call a “handsome” man, but she was genuinely interested. Really made my night.
I called her later that week and we got together, and it was pretty cool. However, let me just end by telling you that it is damn near impossible to date a stripper. It’s hard to be intimate with someone who gets naked for a living. It’s also very very hard to not be jealous. Oh well. It didn’t work out.
And now I’ve gone off into nowhere, and there’s nothing left to do but trail off and end this boring post of mine…
Good story: I go to a Target, get my stuff, and check out. The Cashier is just beautiful beyond compare. I go back to Target (I just moved so I was in there like once a week for about a month), get the same cashier. Next time I go back looking for her. I go to her line, compliment her, say something witty, get her number. Now we’re going out (woo hoo!) Funny thing is had I waited a day I would have never got that chance, because she quit. So like I always say, the hesitator’s the masterbater.
Bad story: I’m at my best friend from High School’s Wedding. The newlyweds were the youngest two in their families, so I was the only single person at the Wedding, besides the children. So after the reception, I hit a bar (still in my Tux). I’m getting hit on all night, especially the phrase “are you a stripper?” (must have been the Tux). So NEwho, I pick up this girl Gretchen, who looks pretty damn good in the bar lighting (did i mention I was really drunk?). Gretchen and myself go to a Steak n Shake across the street form the bar. All I can say is THANK THE POWERS THAT BE FOR STEAK N SHAKE! Do you realize how bright it is in a Steak N Shake? All I have to say is that girl was a DAWG, and she was covered in hickeys. I also found out she was a teenage mother of two. So now whenever I go out, I hit steak n Shake afterwards.
[annoying receptionist]Pot, there’s a call on line 1 for you. Kettle wants to discuss tomorrow’s wardrobe.[/annoying receptionist]
Yeah, I’ve picked up guys in a bar. That’s how I met my ex-husband. I met Feynn when we were both working in a bar, although I don’t think that counts.
I don’t think that I’ve ever had any major failures, unless you count the divorce as one. That was many years later, so that’s debatable.
Actually, one guy I picked up actually started naming our kids on the first date. I guess that didn’t work out too well…
Oh, I don’t pick up women in bars.
I did notice one time I went to a bar that one woman was very nice, warm & talked to me very attentively. Later I noticed she did that with a lot of customers. Do they hire women to talk to guys just so the guys start to buy drinks & stay in the bar? I think they do.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast.
I’ve never successfully picked someone up in a bar. Listen to the following story and tell me if you can see where I went wrong.
A few friends of mine and I were at a bar, having some drinks, chatting amiably, life was good. A stunning woman stepped up to the bar next to us and ordered a drink. ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained,’ I thought.
I tapped her on the shoulder. “Excuse me?” I said, with the nicest smile I could muster.
She looked over her shoulder at me and smiled back. “Yes?”
I steeled my heart, took a breath, and said, “Do you like chips?”
She paused, and started to reply “Well, I-”
“Because I’m Frito-Lay,” I interrupted.
She paused again, looked at me, slapped me, and walked out. The rest of the bar burst out in laughter. I put a hand to the welt on my cheek, blinked back a tear of surprise and pain, and wondered what I said.
The bartender gave our group free drinks for the rest of the night, though, so I must have done something right.
I was once picked up with the very clever line, “Hey, your name’s Lowell, right?”. Lasted about two years. Now I’m waiting for someone else to try it.
A few years back, I was going out with someone who had just been sent to Germany. She stopped writing after 3 weeks, and then hit my with a I don’t have time for this letter.
After moping around for a couple of weeks some friends and I went out for Dollar taps. As I was scoping the place, I noticed someone cute, who just then looked at me. I smiled, she smiled back, so I pointed towards the dance floor. She nodded and I joined her on the floor. After dancing for about 3 songs, I asked her name, and gave her mine. We then decided that it was getting too crowded and I suggested another bar within walking distance (this was on Water st in Eau Claire, most bars a within spiting distance). We talked at the other bar till close at 2am. I then walked her to her friends car, and got her number.
We went out for about three months after that. My pal ( who was sitting at the table with his GF) did not notice that I had left until I was already on the dance floor, and since them ribbed me about being able to pick up women out of the blue.
I cant say I have ever ‘picked up’ a girl in a bar. I have met many women in bars and soon after ended up going home with them and have been “picked up” by quite a few women.
Actually I met my fiancee in a bar.
The best pickup story I have (failed unfortuanetly) was one night right after getting a new tatoo i was in Kash n Karry (foodstore) picking up some lotion for the tat while on the way out to a bar. This incredibly cute tatooed goth chick asked if I was getting the stuff I had for a tat. we started talking and I got her #. We spoke a few times but never managed to get together. I am told that supermarkets are the place to hook up though.
I used to know a guy who would come up with the most god-awful-ridiculous pickup lines, swearing that the more outrageous they were, the more likely they were to work.
I actually witnessed one that worked like a charm: Herbie (yes, BION, that was his real name) had a friend stand across a bar pretending to shoot arrows while he approached the target and asked, “Are you in love with me yet?”
She looked at him weirdly and said, “What?”
He repeated his question and when she rolled her eyes and said no, he yelled to his friend, “You must of missed, shoot another one!”
She laughed her ass off and went home with him that night.
Another that he used and said worked was this:
He approached a girl and asked, “You look familiar, have we met before?”
She, of course, says no.
He then says, “No, I know we’ve met. I’ve got it! We were in San Francisco, wrapped in each other’s arms and just about to kiss when the earthquake struck, the ground opened up and you fell in to disappear from my life forever. Only now, here you are and you obviously have amnesia.”
He was a trip, and funnier than hell.
Lines like those work because they took some effort and were funny in an over-the-top way, not a desperate way.
Nothing worse than desperate sounding pick-up lines. If someone can’t come up with a good and FUNNY line, they shouldn’t use lines.
I’m too geeky looking. Women aren’t interested in me.
I hat bars and clubs anyway.