“Come-ons”
Fleur-De-Lis
(Oct-05-2006)
Have you heard the commercial on the radio, in which the guy is trying to attract a girl’s attention, but he’s flopping with whatever line he’s using? How have your lines been going? Are you getting any? Are those things still being used? Do we still call them that? Well, according to my many sources, they are, and our reactions when they are used remain the same. We laugh, we blush, we’re shocked, disgusted, embarrassed, bewildered, and sometimes super pleased like peacocks.
A young girlfriend got this: “One guy said, “Nice”, walked off, returned, and said, “I change my mind.” Paused, and then said, “Very nice.” I don’t know what happened after that, but for a come-on, it wasn’t bad.
Here’s another: “Baby, you need a chauffeur.” Oh, I get that too, but it’s always said by some walk-foot or a guy who only has access to other people’s cars, so I never really considered it a ‘come-on’. A colleague of mine very brightly and confidently, many years ago, came to me with, “I like when somebody likes me. They tell me they like me.” I was like, “Huh?”
A friend in the media told me this one. She’s someone you would have seen on TV. She said that he said to me, "Z. Brown?" So I seh, "Yes?" Him seh, "Is good to know that is not only on TV alone yu look spontaneous." After that ‘spontaneous come-on’, what does one say or do?.! At least he tried. Some don’t. Actually, some shouldn’t. But these first-lines men used on various women make the grade: “I know I’m too young for you, but I’m attracted to you”; “Are those real? Can I touch them?”; “What is that?”; “Why don’t you stop touching me. Do you think I’m gay?”; “Hey wanna make like Ebony & Ivory?”
Girls have been heard to say these: “Where did this cool drink of water came from?”; “I like your locks, can I touch them?”; “Oh my God, heaven came to earth.”
The best lines and the ones that seem to work, are usually those that draw positive attention, a laugh, further conversation, and are spontaneous. They may even be corny and clumsy. But, at least they won’t illicit responses that include cuss words or a quarrel, a middle finger extended, or a brother beating up the ‘offender’.
So my next question is, when did we go from at least trying to be polite, cute and interesting to stuff like this: “My size!” and “Will you masturbate for me?” Or, as said on a bus, “Baby mi wah step up inna yu belly.” I had to be walked through that one. Personally, those kinds of come-ons just don’t work for me. As a matter of fact, if I were approached with the worst of those, I’d have to block it from memory.
At what point and in what circumstances do we say stuff like that? When is it okay? How do we get there? I do expect questions will be asked. After all, I may ask a few myself. How else will we ‘get’ what we think we want? However, have we evolved so much that we feel it’s okay and even smart or amusing to use some of the most intimate, private, personal statements and issues in that manner? When did we become so familiar? Where is charisma? Where are politeness and kindness and gentleness and respect for the opposite sex? Where’s funny and witty? Here’s a guy I like – “I work slow when it comes to women. I take my time because I like to know more about the person before I even make any advance.”
Nobody wants to be boring or clichéd, but there are some basic, simple come-ons and questions that time and era haven’t changed. I concede, there are some that had to be discarded, others upgraded, but not so.
I’ve been thinking – if it comes to the crunch and I had a choice, I’d take the boring and clichéd.
|
