Oh, the date went fine. 
I used the past tense there just to mean that she looked great at that moment, and I could have seen myself, if not killing, at least maiming at her command. 
“Hey, you’re pretty cute, what’s your name?”
-Said while leaving a bar because I realized I was too drunk to be in public, to a girl walking in who hadn’t been drinking. The next thing I remember, I was waking up in her bed. It was my first weekend in town, and the first thing she said to me when I woke up was, “Welcome to Santa Fe!” 
Most recently, I was at a cougar bar, and I walked up to a super hot gal who looked about my age (25), and said, “You’re cute, wanna dance?”. I wonder if it’s something about telling the gal she’s cute, or if it’s simply the confidence portrayed by being drunk enough to tell a total stranger that.
A 12 hour phone call? Holy crap. The only thing I’ve ever done for 12 hours straight is sleep, and even that made me tired.
It wasn’t my opening line but it was the one that elicited the first genuine giggle and opened up the conversation from the usual boring smalltalk to something more substantial- and by substantial, I mean we had sex that night:
[After about 3 minutes of mindless drivel from both of us]:
Me: So, what do you do?
Hottie: I’m a statistician.
Me: A statistician? Huh, what are the odds…
And two hours later, she showed me her “O” face.
I’m not fooling myself- I know she didn’t find the line all that funny, and had probably heard it a million times already by that point, but whatever. It worked.
Please note: This was not a pickup line. It was not a pickup attempt. I had no interest whatsoever dating this girl. It was all just being social with a stranger.
But man, it was textbook. Everything needed to pull off a perfect pickup was there, in all the right proportions, with impeccable timing. Except, of course, for the appropriateness.
We were walking down the street in opposite directions.
Me: “Hi, do you go to [university printed on her sweatshirt]?”
She slowed down.
Her: “No, but I hope to go in a few years.”
Me: “Oh, cool, I graduated from there.”
I got the lock.
Her: “Really?!? Wow! Tell me everything about all the knowledge in the known universe!”
She was very enthusiatic. I was a god to her. In fact just a minute later…
Her: “Mom? Dad? I’d like you to meet tdn!”
And the parents loved me! Very nice family. I hope I gave them second thoughts about that particular school. I don’t think it’s a good fit for her.
I wasn’t trying to impress her or pick her up–I was actually trying to piss her off.
Context: I had just met this girl, FOAF. She and the friend were chatting outside of my summer term Calculus class, halfway through the first day. I said hi to my friend and he introduced us, and somehow she started talking about her piercings. I told her, yeah, I had a couple of piercings; I was lying through my teeth, hoping to string her along as far as possible before finally dropping one line that would shock her and make her seriously rethink ever talking to me again. Why? I don’t know, it seemed like a fun idea at the time. Looking back on it, I think I was subconsciously victim of the same impulse that leads little boys to express their love for little girls by throwing rocks at them.
So she asked me where my piercings were and I made some comment like, “Ha! I don’t know you that well.” Meaning, they’re in a special, erotic place of some kind. She then asked me some technical question about the procedure, something about the kind of needle that was used. I suddenly realized that my back was against the wall at this point: I had no idea what she was talking about, so I had to drop the bomb, or she would figure me out and just be mildly irritated. That wasn’t acceptable. I needed to give her something she would remember. I had to go for the gold.
I told her, “You know, it’s a little unconventional, but I actually prefer to sterilize my needles in the fresh blood of Christian children. It’s the only way to be sure.”
She later told me that was the moment she fell in love with me.
“My God you’re beautiful!” said without thinking, completely sincerely, and off the cuff.
She said “Yeah, then how come no guy ever asks me out?”
I responded with “So, is Saturday good for you?” 
She laughed and I got a short time relationship with a cover-girl model beautiful girl, quite a bit younger than me.
But we didn’t have enough in common, I wasn’t the man she really wanted and she was too shallow for me. Oh well, we had fun.
It worked as it wasn’t a line.
‘Hi.’
This week. Walking along, I see a man walking towards me, he looks up and we make eye contact. We both lit up with recognition, said ‘hi’ with great affection and then realized - at the same moment - that we’ve never met and don’t know each other. We grinned and moved on.
I want his babies! (In a metaphoric, lots of practice with no intentions of following through kinda way)
Just one of those random, momentary connections that brightens up the day (week / month).
Going back to a line that got me a date? Normal conversation.
There’s a theory that with really hot women, that’s the way to go. They’re used to nice guys hitting on them, and so they have all sorts of defenses against that. If you instead go with a little negging right out of the gate, you can throw them for a real curve. “You’re cute, and that one little flaw doesn’t bother me a bit.”
I tried that this morning on the train. I was standing next to this gorgeous woman, and I got the sense that she was looking at me a little. My pickup line? “You’ve got a little something on your shirt there.” She thanked me and said it was OK, she was going to put on a blazer. I stopped checking her out. Whenever I looked her way, I looked right at the spot. Before long, she was working furiously to get it out and return to flawless.
:::fans self:::
Reminds me of how I lost my virginity. I was at my boring-ass summer-school-tutoring job; I had just graduated from high school a couple of weeks before. I had just gotten a new phone, so I had a free Internet access trial on it. So I fired up AIM, with nothing to do, and it displayed my buddy list in a strange, seemingly random fashion; for some reason, this girl who was going into her sophomore year at my high school was first on the list. We’d taken a psychology class together that fall, and we hit it off somewhat, but it quickly fizzled once we talked a little on AIM back then. (That, and her best friend had a huge crush on me, and started to work me at that point. It finally paid off for her: midway through the spring semester, she gave me my first kiss and my first blowjob.)
Anyway, she was first on the list, so I figured I’d see how she was doing. The conversation started something like this:
Me: Hey, how are you?
Girl: Peter won’t have sex with me.
Me: I will!
Girl: OK. Tomorrow?
Me: Sure.
Girl: Sweet!
Name changed to protect the innocent. Turned out poor Peter suffered from a raging case of ED. He wasn’t bitter about it, though; he actually gave her a ride to my place for a sex date later that summer. Hell of a classy guy.
Pickup lines that worked for me?
Sorry. Got nothing.
However, it’s apparent that whatever people say works better when they “aren’t trying”.
Three words for ya: Future. Serial. Killer. :eek:
Actually, now that you mention it… :eek:
It’s the confidence. The “cute” thing is iffy. I was out dancing with a female friend a few months ago, and a guy came up to me and asked me why I had stopped dancing. I told him I was tired. “You’re the cutest blonde here,” he said
Me: “I’m the only blonde here.”
True. He was a little embarrassed. And then I told him I’m married. He was all, “woah, that’s weird.” I was very nice to him, though.
Just my little hypothesis, but I think it’s more than that. It’s the whole social interaction. Yes, confidence is a huge part of it, but it’s also body language, pacing and tempo, tone of voice, everything. It’s like a great song where the lyrics have been changed to something completely nonsensical. If it’s got a good beat, you’re still going to dance to it. The guitar solo is still awesome. The vocal harmonies are still amazing. Who cares what the words are?
In fact, psychology students are taught this as a skill. They are taught not to listen to the words, but the “music” of the patient’s voice. My ex described an example of this training that she was doing. A young woman was talking about her father, and what a great guy he was. World’s Best Dad. And she seemed like a nice woman. But when they stopped listening to the words and listened to the music of her voice, they decided that she was, in fact, a repulsive, ugly, detestable person. As it turned out, she subconsciously thought of her father that way. She hated his guts and didn’t even know it.
Lets just leave my ex out of this O.K.?