How to Coach Yourself and Others Coaching With Meta Communication | Page 54

Opening lines
When the subject of flirting comes up, most people seem to be
obsessed with the issue of 'opening lines' or 'chat-up lines'.
Men talk about lines that work and lines that have failed;
women laugh about men's use of hackneyed or awkward
opening lines, and all of us, whether we admit it or not, would
like to find the perfect, original, creative way to strike up a
conversation with someone we find attractive.
The answer, perhaps surprisingly, is that your opening line is
really not very important, and all this striving for originality
and wit is a wasted effort. The fact is that conversational
'openers' are rarely original, witty or elegant, and no-one
expects them to be so. The best 'openers' are, quite simply,
those which can easily be recognised as 'openers' – as attempts
to start a conversation.
The traditional British comment on the weather ("Nice day,
isn't it?" or "Doesn't feel much like summer, eh?", etc.) will do
just fine, as everyone knows that it is a conversation-starter.
The fact that these comments are phrased as questions, or with
a rising 'interrogative' intonation, does not mean that the
speaker is unsure about the quality of the weather and requires
confirmation: it means that the speaker is inviting a response in order to start a conversation.
In Britain, it is universally understood that such weather-comments have
nothing to do with the weather, and they are universally accepted as
conversation-starters. Saying "Lovely day, isn't it?" (or a rainy-day
equivalent) is the British way of saying "I'd like to talk to you; will you talk to
me?"
A friendly response , including positive body language, means "Yes, I'll talk
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