Pick-up lines on BART

I've seen magic happen on BART, I really have. If you've read my blog for quite some time, you might recall the story of the sweet couple who first fell in love on BART. Well, I don't know if they are still together, but I've witnessed who they've started talking to each other on the train.

While magic happens, plenty of underwhelming pick-up attempts happen as well. I've talked about the guy who pretended that he loves knitting and the guy who freaked a women out by forcing her to sit in his vacated seat.

One very consistent pick-up strategy that surely almost always leads to no good is the foreign language "hello." What am I talking about? This is one that Asian or Latino women on BART sometimes experience. A man thinks he's impressing you by saying "hello" to you in what he thinks is your native language. Now, there are a few things wrong with that thinking. First, just say hello, we understand English. Secondly, just because we look one way doesn't mean we understand what you're trying to say. I know this is totally innocent but for the sake of the blog, do allow me to elaborate.

This has happened to me a few times. Here's the most recent example. A man comes up to me and says hello to me in Korean. I'm Taiwanese American but I've heard the Korean greeting enough times to recognize it. I politely acknowledge him with a faint smile and look down at my phone again. He then interrupts, I said hello to you in Korean. I said, I know, I'm not Korean, I'm Taiwanese American. He insists further, no way, are you sure you're not Korean? I have a lot of Korean friends and you definitely look Korean. At this point, my patience is extremely thin and I found his ignorance (likely innocent) and lack of tact awfully annoying. I could say so many things at this point but simply replied, yes, I'm sure that I'm not Korean and walked away. In the past, one man actually said to me, "oh, I love Thai food" when I told him that I'm Taiwanese American and not what he thinks I am.

I've heard this scenario a few times on BART with different women and it's pretty funny. Some respond flat out that you don't need to say hola, I can speak English, others completely ignore the attempt.

Just one more random thing to keep me entertained on BART when my Twitterfeed isn't working.