What is a Pickup Line?
Written by Gabriella Matheny
A pickup line is a conversational starter used to convey romantic or sexual interest. They can be cliché or original, but usually fall into one of three categories based on the criteria outlined in a study done by Senko and Fyffe. The categories are flippant, direct, and innocuous. Flippant pickup lines are usually what people think of when they think of pickup lines as they use humor, puns, and sexual language. Examples are “If you were a fruit, you’d be a fine-apple,” and “Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?” Direct pickup lines bypass the humor and focus on sincerity and flattery. “I saw you across the room and knew I had to meet you,” and “You are the only person in here I can’t stop looking at,” are examples. Innocuous pickup lines are the least obvious pickup lines and work more as normal conversational starters. However, because they are questions targeted to get to know the other person and can be used with flirtatious tones, they are still considered pickup lines. These include lines like “I’ve seen you before. Do you live around here?” and “What do you think of the band?”
In an interview with my mother, she talked about her “Blue Suede Shoe” story when I asked about her dating life and experiences with pickup lines.
Blue Suede Shoes Elvis Presley’s blue suede shoes
When my mother was working at a shoe store during college, a guy she knew from class tried to hit on her using a pickup line referencing the Elvis Presley song, “Blue Suede Shoes.” However, there was a slight misunderstanding and my mother thought he wanted to buy a pair of blue suede shoes. After clearing up the miscommunication, he asked her out to dinner. Unfortunately for him, my mother was married at the time.
The traditional understanding of pickup lines is that they are a verbal conversation starter. However, written forms of communication are not immune to dating culture and the use of pickup lines. Texting and dating apps are a hot spot for pickup lines. Most of them are simply text versions of the verbal pickup lines. When I conducted my research, I interviewed my friend, Kavya Mahesh, as she had just started using online dating apps. Here is her take on the use of pickup lines in online dating and how they differ from her experience of in person dating. The leading question was “Have there been any interesting characters that you’ve met?”:
Since dating apps take place online, images can be used along with the text to create a pickup line. The main use of images in pickup lines during online dating comes in the form of emojis, which can be used in several ways. First, the emoji can be a direct substitution for the word. An example of this is “If you were an (apple emoji), you’d be the one I’d pick.” The emoji can also be used to create puns. For example, “I want to give you a (pizza emoji) my heart.” The pizza emoji takes the place of the word “pizza,” which in turn takes the place of “piece of,” creating a visual pun. As shown with the examples, emoji pickup lines tend to fall into the flippant category as they are usually humorous in nature, relying heavily on visual puns.
The use of images with text based pickup lines is not a new phenomenon. People used pictures to convey their romantic interests long before emojis were a thing. The example I will provide for this is the story of how my grandparents started their courtship. The following is an excerpt of my mother telling me that story:
Both of my grandparents are Italian immigrants, but they did not come to America at the same time. My grandmother came over with her family and when she turned 18, her father decided it was time to find her a husband. My grandmother found all the boys he introduced to her unsuitable. Her uncle mentioned that he knew of a boy in Italy and she allowed him to write to her. This boy, who was my grandfather, included a picture of himself with the letter. In this picture, he is wearing a suit, standing on a staircase smoking a cigarette, and has a mustache. My grandmother responded that she does not like facial hair. My grandfather’s next letter included another photo. In this picture, he is wearing the same suit, standing on the same staircase smoking a cigarette, and has no mustache.
This use of images in this story does differ significantly from the emoji pickup lines in that the images are not used as an opening line. However, the photos get away with being a visual pickup line because they are being sent in letters, which is not a form of instant communication. You would not send someone a single sentence with a photo or just a photo because that does not fit the schema of letter sending. Long distance, non-instant visual pickup lines will not adhere completely to the traditional pickup line definition of a verbal opening line. A pickup line will adapt to its setting, be it in person, on a dating app, or in a letter.
The photos act as a two-part pickup line. The first picture my grandfather sends falls into the flippant category. Flippant pickup lines try, to some extent, impress the person receiving them. This is clear by the common use of humor and puns as the sender wants to appear clever and cool. My grandfather was obviously trying to impress my grandmother by wearing a suit and looking cool standing on a staircase with a cigarette. Unfortunately, he had a mustache, and my grandmother does not date men with facial hair. Therefore, the second photo is a direct visual pickup line because my grandfather shaved his mustache for her, becoming a man my grandmother would date.
While pickup lines exist in different forms and spaces, they all have the same objective of getting the attention of someone you are interested in.