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Thanks, but no thanks.
Bill Ackman, the CEO of Pershing Square Holdings, had a weekend epiphany, posted on X, that digital dating has killed romance — he’s not totally wrong — and that the reason why single men are struggling to meet potential suitors out in the wild is because they’re not using the right pick-up line on women.
His flirty conversation starter of choice?
“May I meet you?”
It’s a head-scratcher, for sure, but the billionaire swears he “almost never got a no” by using it.
Thousands of people quickly chimed in on the post, trolling Ackman’s outdated opener, but his advice raised an even bigger question: What are the best and worst pick-up lines people have ever heard?
Because, let’s face it, singles have gotten both wittier and weirder in today’s dating world.
The Post did some digging to find out which lines either wooed or bewildered the masses.
In our own newsroom, for instance, a reporter was once asked by a guy, “Up for some nonsense?” which, much to her friends’ surprise, she thought was clever and cheeky. An editor also copped to hearing a pick-up line from a friend that he seems to have stored in his memory bank, as he wasted no time answering this question when asked: “Nice shoes. Wanna f–k?”
In the real world — meaning on social media — it was a mixed bag.
“Every time I’ve said to a woman, ‘Hey X, I like you and I am attracted to you, I’d like to get to know you better,’ I’ve gotten a date,” Reddit user notume37 shared.
On X, Melissa Chen — fittingly enough, the vice president at Strategy Risks, a geopolitical risk analysis company — shared a sweet line that would’ve worked on her if she were still single.
“Two days ago, I was leaving a supermarket in North London when a young man — I think he was 21, at most 25 -— came up to me and said, ‘Can I take you out on a date?’ I smiled, showed him the ring on my finger, and said, ‘I am engaged, but if I were single, I would have said yes.'”
Emma Davis told The Post that her now-boyfriend sweetly referenced the brutal heatwave NYC experienced this past summer.
He messaged her on Tinder with the opener, “Hot enough out there for ya?” and it swept the 26-year-old right off her feet. “It was probably one of the corniest ones I’ve heard, but he got me and four months later, here we are,” she recalled.
And while plenty of people thought Ackman’s pick-up line was downright creepy, compared to other conversation starters people have been approached with, his — shockingly — wasn’t the worst of them.
Adea Sessoms, 38, messaged The Post that a man of few words once approached her as she was heading to the bathroom. He might’ve gotten cold feet in the moment because the only thing that came out of his mouth once they were face-to-face was, “Good night.”
Reality check: “It was 4:30 p.m.,” Sessoms revealed.
Once, when picking up fish at her local Whole Foods, Charlee Remitz “got hit on by the seafood clerk,” she told The Post.
“He asked me if he could assume I was single because I was only buying fish for one,” she recalled. “I was not a fan of being hit on while buying fish.”
In March 2020, as the world went into lockdown due to COVID-19, Sue D. told The Post that she was asked by an interested — if randy — suitor: “Wanna play coronavirus and get spread on hard surfaces?”
Christina Harman, 32, also recalled to The Post that she was turned off by a finance bro who annoyingly bragged about his job to get her attention.
“Nothing about what he said impressed me enough to go on an actual date with him.”
English (US)