Line spectator

Growing up, I accumulated pickup lines like most people collect fine wines. I gleaned them from R-rated movies and Stephen King novels, treasures filed away in my pubescent mind. I was thrilled when I finally came of an age to actually use these gems of sexual wisdom, pulling them from the cellars of my brain.

Several months shy of my 18th birthday, at a youth in government convention in Tallahassee, I found myself flirting with another member of the high-school aged court. We thrust and parried, trading innuendoed witticisms until he threw down a line that caused me to stumble.

"Your clothes would look great in a crumpled heap on my bedroom floor tomorrow morning." He raised his eyebrows and turned up the corners of his lips in a wet grin.

For a brief, inexplicable moment, I was thrilled. Here, finally, was one of the lines I'd been storing away. He had descended into the wine cellar of my heart and returned with a dusty Chateau Lafite-Rothschild. Unfortunately, though, the vintage had long since soured. Rather than sounding suave, like I had always imagined, the line was awkward and tawdry, too much verve and not enough class.

I rolled my eyes and stepped away. He suddenly seemed unsophisticated, standing there with the last syllables of the lame line dying on his tongue, and I felt my attraction for sleazy lines waver and slip away.

It would be almost five years before I returned to my fascination with great come-ons, this time an ocean and a continent away. Whereas I had been working on my repertoire for two decades, France - the country that brought us the ménage-à-trois and pioneered the French kiss - had practically invented the pick-up line.

Less than a year out of college, optimistic and guileless in the way only young Americans can be, I moved to Paris with a suitcase full of Levis and a mind fueled by romanticism. Within two months, I'd traded my denim for knee-high leather boots and heard every line in the French book.

"Quels beaux yeux" ("What beautiful eyes") they said on the subway, hotblooded Frenchmen clasping my hands in their own. "Vous êtes charmante" ("You are charming") on sidewalks as they matched their strides to mine. "Je te paie à boire?" ("Can I buy you a drink?").

 

Being a line connoisseur for years, I knew exactly what those French men were up to. But, the words had a class to them, an old world charm that all of my collected English versions lacked. It was as though I had been drinking Napa Valley reds for years, content in my limited range, but now I had tasted a vintage Bordeaux.

I'll admit, I became something of a wino on those heavy, sultry French lines. And when it came time for me to return to the States, I experienced my own version of withdraw.

Recently, I visited France again, the first time since that year in Paris. At dinner, the gentlemen next to me poured wine as he slipped a note into my hand.

"You have the head of an empress," it read. "And beautiful eyes."

It was headily familiar and intoxicating. I smiled and raised my glass to him. "Vous êtes charmant."

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