How A Grammarian Would Talk To Beautiful People

Or, A Grammatically Correct Love Story

Normally, a master’s degree in literature has practically zero value on this planet.

Seriously, direct applications include teaching and . . . .

A lit major is not a marketer, copywriter, author, or journalist. Far from it.

I mean, who can’t write basic stuff or read books? Literacy is at an all-time high: it’s 99% in the USA. So most people can do everything I can do, except maybe use a semicolon four different ways. (BTW, I’m with Kurt Vonnegut. Semicolons are so over-rated, and I haven’t used one in five years.)

Most of the time, despite not being very good looking in the slightest, I talked to anyone I was interested in.

However, in terms of talking to attractive women a lit degree is the best one you could ever have. Granted, it has been a long time since I’ve thought about this, what I’m about to say always works. It worked for Byron, Keats, and Shelly — or any of the literati really. It even worked for frumpy old editors of some obscure academic journal you’ve never heard of.

Here’s what some of them knew.

First, take a look at a sentence. It has a subject and a verb. “I write,” for example. Of course, you can get crazy and add a few more things into the mix like the whole S-V-O thing: subject-verb-object. That’s very English!

“I wrote on the desk.”

Elementary, right Watson? But it’s really the indirect object that will get the girls.

“I gave the girl a kiss.”

So here we have Subject + Verb + Indirect Object + Direct Object.

The girl is the recipient of the thing, or the beneficiary [?] of the action. “Giving” is the verb of course, and “a kiss” is the direct object. And the latter is a way better thing to give, than say, mononucleosis. (Which may or may not have happened to me in the ninth grade.)

And that’s all you really need to know about talking to people.

A Grammatical Love Story

So let’s paint a scenario where this works 100% of the time.

One day I was at a local bank standing in line. It was a long line as usual, and everyone was just patiently waiting to be next.

And then she walked in.

She was svelte, well-dressed, and pretty: of course she caught my eye. She caught everyone’s eyes including other women in the line. That’s just how beauty works.

Anyhow, I looked away after she looked away first (that’s key). And then she fell in line.

There was a woman between us who got tired of waiting and just left. Now this gorgeous creature was right behind me. The three-second rule kicked in, so I quickly said something to her as she sauntered up to me.

I pointed to the painting in front of us and leaned over to the woman and said, “Is it just me, or does that guy up there look like the Quaker Oats guy?”*

The woman chuckled and so did a few others overhearing my comment.

I was in.

The conversation threads were effortless from there.

Her guard was down, she told me personal things, we went out the next night, and now we’re married.

Just kidding, we’re not married. However, I had a good three-date run. (Turns out, she said that my favorite Austrian writers were overrated. I never spoke to her again!)

[*To be clear, not making fun of Quakers here. There was something about the hat.]

The Grammar Gene

I carried on my little Indirect Object ploy throughout my whole dating life. You wouldn’t believe the luck this schmuck had in life. Most of the time, despite not being very good looking in the slightest, I talked to anyone I was interested in.

I rarely feared talking to beautiful women, even models or semi-celebrities, because I knew what socially savvy grammarians knew (which is probably like a grand total of ten): The Indirect Object prevails!

So how and why does this work?

Before we get into that, it might help to know that I was raised by a few amazing and beautiful women during my formative years. People would tell me this on a daily basis.

I was close to someone, we’ll call her Anne, that was the captain of every sport she played and really smart. The triple-threat in this make-up was that everyone thought Anne was super pretty. I mean, I thought she was gross and quite average, but that’s just me being a kid. When Anne would walk around with me, men would practically stumble into walls from rubber-necking her. It was weird.

Needless to say, I learned a lot about women, beauty, and communication from my neighborhood. But the bad thing about Anne was that she was kind of mean to me in a big sister way. I don't think she was actually a mean person, it just appeared this way to most men— especially the ones constantly hitting on her.

Anne once told me that she put on a bitchy face and rocked a tough stride to intentionally give men the wrong impression. Most women know what I’m talking about. How she explained this to me was that she doesn’t have time to deal with all these ogling weirdos, so she puts up this guard. She actually said that this was a form of “time management” for her.

Now if a guy was smooth enough to look past this guard, they had a chance with her. However, most of the time she turned down men and went about her life. (Maybe that’s why she became so successful.) Today, I can appreciate that kind of independence. But back then, I really just thought Anne hated most men. I was wrong and now I think what she did was brilliant.

I suspect that the men she approved of knew all about the indirect object on a conscious or unconscious level.

How To Relieve The Cabin Pressure Of Small Talk

Let’s face it, conversation is hard with pretty people. I’m such an introvert, conversation is hard in general!

But what women taught me was how much pressure talking is. It’s a lot of pressure on women taking compliments all day from men they mostly don’t want to talk to. And it’s a lot of pressure for men to approach pretty women. I’m sure it goes both ways, but men often get the short end of the stick here. Women have the advantage.

I remember “analysis paralysis” making my friends freeze up so much, it almost brought them to tears. In fact, it makes men emotionally disintegrate on the spot. There’s something about a woman with arresting beauty. There is so much pressure talking to them. It brings up all your insecurities.

Talking to attractive people in a public space is worse. It compounds all this pressure. It makes you want to give up and just creepily ogle from afar. I have no sympathy for these kind of men today, but I do understand them. I went through that phase too.

Now, talking about some random indirect object in the room relieves a lot of pressure on both sides. If a woman ever rejected my comment, it was the indirect object she was actually rejecting and not me. And as for her, I wasn’t directly hitting on her. I was just trying to make conversation and maybe hit on her later after getting some more feedback. There was no pressure for her to confront an unwelcome direct approach. Placing an indirect object between us was like a pressure release valve and a magnet all at once.

This reminds me how I learned to love grammar in the first place.

Go Direct, But Indirectly

God bless Mr. W, my 11th grade English teacher. He saved my life, well, my love life at least. That’s where I encounter the indirect object epiphany. One moment in the middle of an otherwise boring grammar lecture, it all made sense. While creepily ogling a fellow classmate, I practically dropped my invisible drool cup in class when this thought struck me:

Mr. W’s tie kind of looked like little yellow Funyuns.

When I made this quiet comment to the girl who I spent all year trying to muster up a simple “hello” to, she started to laugh out loud.

Long story short, class was interrupted, we never dished on what we were laughing at, I asked her out the next day, and now we’re married.

Just kidding, we’re not married. However, I did have a good three-lunch run with her.

Post-Baccalaureate Grammar Usage

Anyhow, my grammar skills and dating skills got really good after high school and college. Again, I majored in English literature for a reason, though I’m not entirely sure what that was.

Up until my senior year, college was really just a blur of music, pretty women, German literature, and coffee. I must have written some papers in between, but I can’t recall. I’m sure they were terrible, and yet the grammar was probably spot-on.

I remember during Spring Break, I was at a big dance club. They were playing some new trip hop band I was into. I leaned over to an achingly beautiful woman that everyone with eyes was obsessing over, and said “Hey, who’s this band?”

I’m a terrible human. I knew who this band was. I paid $20 to get in! Of course I knew who I came to see.

But I couldn’t let this moment fly by without at least trying to talk to this woman who was way out of my league.

The band was the indirect object. They were something interesting, fun, and open-ended to talk about. That conversational thread lead to another more interesting one.

We danced a bit, and then pulled back away from the crowd and noise to talk some more. It was probably about other indirect objects. Her wicked intellect was really the main attraction for me. Things really took off quickly from there.

We did shots, I read the back of her palm, and the next thing I know I’m making out with her in the back of the club. Marriage did not ensue, but I did have a good three-hour run. (BTW, I would have made a terrible pickup artist. I didn’t know you were supposed to read the palm of the hand.)

The Social Grammar Summary

So back to grammar. In summary, it goes like this.

Subject: Me.

Object: Her. (Grammatically, not condescendingly.)

Indirect Object: [some random interesting thing in sight]

Verb: Me talking to her and getting over my intense fear of rejection.

I can see it now. Some loser seducer community calling this “The Grammar Pickup” tactic, or something weird like that. In truth, it’s not a pickup tactic as much as a conversation starter — which is the real hurdle most men have. It’s what kept Anne’s would-be suitors at bay.

The indirect object is like a can of industrial-sized polar caps melter. It helps get rid of icy social walls, and it warms people up to a temperature to possibly laugh. Because in the end, who doesn’t like to laugh or make small talk? Let’s have a little fun while we can.

Her guard was down, she told me personal things, we went out the next night, and now we’re married.

The One Time It’s Okay To Objectify Women

Now let’s say my comical life spoke to you, but you’re still one of those pressure-cookers women loathe. Well, stop that! Don’t put them on the spot.

Put all of those indirect objects to work for goodness sake.

So the next time you spot a traffic-stopping beauty you want to talk to, do anything except tell her how beautiful she is. (She knows, she knows, they always know.)

Grab anything in sight and do the hardest part: break the ice in a cordial way.

One topic will lead to another. More sentences, more talk, more sharing. Next thing you know, maybe you will get married. Don’t all great friendships and relationships sorta start this way?

Get grammatical.

Go indirect!