GREY MUTTER: South Africa’s citizens have been wooed, every five years, by some pretty ‘romantic’, but seriously hollow pick-up lines. And next year the primed, polished and persuasive politicians will again be out in force, writes Lance Fredericks.
MOST people would be aware that living on the extreme end of the introvert spectrum tends to leave one tongue-tied most of the time. However, not many know that it could also lead to one choosing pretty dodgy role-models.
Allow me to explain; having been more than a little shy for my entire life, puberty snuck up on me with one massive, crushing complication … I wanted a girlfriend, but I was terrified of speaking to girls, especially those on which I had a crush. The bigger the crush, the fewer the words, the fewer the words, the more intense the blush – my nickname could have been ‘Ambu-Lance light’.
So to help me with what I considered a disability, and so that I could have the tools on hand to speak to the fairer sex, I would study the body language, the attitude and especially the verbal mastery of the boys that were more confident around the girls.
The problem is that being on the furthest end of the introvert spectrum left me with an inability to gauge how far I should aim to the other end of the spectrum.
Eventually, I ended up aiming at the extreme opposite point. I studied the courting tactics and moves of … how do I say this? The ‘ulta-confident’ extroverts. These are the boys who would approach any girl anywhere and hit them up with gems from their stockpile of pick-up lines.
I am going to do my best to try to reproduce them for a family newspaper, so bear with me, and by the way, this is true – just ask around. Here are a few examples:
When seeing a particular girl walking down the road, the trick was to firstly identify her in a group by calling out something specific about her, and next ‘flatter’ her.
So, if you saw a girl wearing black and you wanted to attract her attention and win her heart, you’d shout, “Meisie in die swart, jy steel my hart!” Translated, for effect and not accuracy, it would be something like, “Hey girlie in the darkest grey, you steal my heart away!”
But there were more: “Meisie in die blou, ek wil met jou trou!” (Girlie in the blue, I want to marry you); “Meisie in die wit, ek wil saam met jou sit!” (Girlie in the white, let me sit by you tonight) … let me put it this way, the bag of tricks was bottomless; it not only referenced colours, but anything that made a girl stand out.
Remember the ‘Purdy’ hairstyle? That was covered: “Meisie met die Purdy, jy lyk vir my baie pretty.” … or an item of clothing, no problem: “Meisie in die kortbroek, dis vir jou wat ek soek!” (Girlie in the short pants, I want you in my hands) – admit it, that almost rhymes in English! Even unseen characteristics, like being clever: “Meisie met die IQ, I’m starting to like you!”
Look, this was the ’70s and ’80s … language like this, though obnoxious, was – believe it or not – eerily acceptable.
Anyway, as you can imagine, for someone who was always tongue-tied around girls, and not realising that girls had brains and were able to converse like actual humans, you can imagine how tempting a bottomless supply of ‘romantic’ pick-up lines was.
Long story short, fast forward to 2023 and I am still single, and beginning to suspect that those poetic, rhyming pick-up lines were probably conceived by a hermit.
I am also pretty confident that not many young ladies fell for these come-ons. I suspect that they were either embarrassed, offended or amused; I doubt that they were impressed.
However, I am not discounting the possibility that somewhere out there, there is a couple, happily married for the past 30 years whose relationship started with, “Meisie in die strepe, jy’s so warm soos peper!”
Stranger things have happened.
For example, South Africa’s citizens have been wooed, every five years, by some pretty ‘romantic’, but seriously hollow pick-up lines. And next year the primed, polished and persuasive politicians will again be out in force with their: “Hey there Mr Resident, come vote for our party’s president!”
Thus far the relationship has been holding, so I guess the come-ons have been working, keeping the ‘romantic’ flame alive.
I wonder though, what would happen if – instead of conjuring up empty slogans and hollow catchphrases for their election posters – parties, across the spectrum, actually came out and spoke to voters as if they had brains and were able to converse like actual humans.
Now wouldn’t that be romantic?
