So there I am, minding my own business at Borders on a Friday night, drinking my almond latte and perusing displays of new fiction, when suddenly I am the addressee of the single worst pickup line I have ever had the misfortune to hear.
Guy: You look well-read.
(Pause)
Me: Um. Really?
Guy: Yeah. You just look like you’ve read a lot. I was wondering if you could suggest any good nonfiction.
Me: Um. I, er, I don’t really read nonfiction... often. (Looking pointedly at the stack of fiction on the table below.)
Guy: Oh. Really? Oh.
(Awkward pause)
Guy: I listen to it on my ipod. While I run.
Me: Oh. Wow. That’s… impressive. (Very interested in this book I randomly selected.)
Guy: I have an anthology that has summaries for five hundred famous works of fiction. I just read the summaries because they give you the main themes. All I want’s the main themes... so why waste my time reading all that other stuff? It’s great.
(Very deliberate pause. I consider spilling latte on myself so that I can escape.)
Me: I was an English major. I like that other stuff.
The conversation (if you can call it that) did not end there. This charming, nonfiction-reading assailant continued to ask me things like “do you like dancing?” until I was forced to pretend I had somewhere to go. This was extremely annoying as I did not manage to purchase any new books, which was, of course, the object of going to Borders in the first place.
Lesson: Don’t go into Borders by yourself on Friday nights. And for Pete’s sake, TRY to not look well-read.
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