I Tried to Pull the Hottest Boys in a London Club Using Wikihow’s Pick-Up Tips

This article was originally published on THUMP UK.

A confession: I'm completely useless at talking to boys. I find myself surrounded by confident and beautiful female friends who regularly message me to tell me about the latest famous DJ or band member they've pulled, and I worry that I'll never accrue the levels of confidence they have. I don't think that I'm necessarily an unattractive girl or anything like that, but attempting to flirt with boys makes me really nervous. Really nervous.

There is some hope though: according to the internet it's really easy for girls to pick boys up. Apparently, all girls require is a combination of fluttering eyelashes, easily-flickable hair, and expert grinding capabilities in order to persuade the object of their affection to hop in an Uber with them. On top of that, everyone is always banging on about how easy it is to get free drinks out of boys. All told, collective wisdom seems to be that there is someone readily available for everyone out there. But not everyone is everyone. What about someone like me, someone who cringes at the thought of even thinking about considering maybe attempting to try and flirt with a bloke in a club?

I decided to do some research and turned to the internet's most questionably reliable but straightforward instructional database, Wikihow, to learn how to pull boys at the club. A quick Google search led me to Wikihow's How to Seduce the Hottest Boy in the Club with the first line of the article asking me, "are you tired of all your girlfriends getting the hottest guys before you do?" YES, Wikihow! That is definitely me! It was as if the crowd-sourced advice column was speaking directly unto me. But would it work in practice? That's the question. So I decided to try Wikihow's instructions on a night out in London to see if I could actually pull a hot, sexy boy at the club.

Shower, shave and moisturize. Easy! What was I to wear though? Another little bit of crucial research on the old Google informed me that boys find the little black dress sexy. Urban Dater states that the little black dress is a boy's kryptonite and renders boys into a "reverted state of goo". Now, you know I'm not really experienced in all of this but I assumed that making a boy gooey is what I'm going for? So I matched a little black dress with a bit of black mesh—because London is cold as fuck.

I needed to decide where to go in London to bag a boy. A quick search of "the best places to pull in London" pointed to a list by Fluid London titled 'On The Pull: Top 10 Best Bars & Clubs for Finding Love'. Fluid London reckons that XOYO is a "great place to pull" and so I decided to head down to the Cowper Street club and give the WikiHow tips a real life go.

YES! Feel free to drink alcohol. I love being drunk. This is something I can do very easily. I bought myself a pint and smashed it down in the blink of an eye. Then, moving onto the dance floor, foam still dripping from my lips, I surveyed the boys on offer.

This bit was easy. I saw a boy who was a babe and decided he would be my target for the night.

Following Wikihow's instructions, I slowly made my way over to my target—from hereon in I will refer to him as "the target," it's not creepy, honestly—as he danced amongst his friends. Standing beside the target I made sure that I was looking right at him and waited until we made eye contact with each other. It's possible that he was slightly unnerved when he turned around to see me starring straight at him, with a saucy smile spread across my face, but I think I finessed it.

I edged my way closer to the hottest boy in the club in an attempt to show him that I was keen. Typically used to finding myself with nothing to say in these situations, I had done a little bit of homework into cool things to say to boys by searching on Google: "cool things to say to boys". I remembered two phrases from my Google search so approached the target as confidently as possible and began to whisper.

"Come live in my heart and pay no rent," I said to him.
"WHAT?" the hottie yelled. So, that line didn't work. I recalled another cool thing to say to boys.
"You hardly find any good-looking boys with brains out there, are you an alien?"

The target looked at me very confused.

Shit, he thought I was a weirdo. I was definitely nose-diving and had completely run out of snappy phrases. The nerves were really getting to me and Wikihow's tips didn't seem to be working very well. I noticed that the situation had become pretty awkward and Wikihow suggested that if it feels a bit uncomfortable then I should buy him a drink. I chose to ignore this tip. No target is worth London's drink prices.

Step seven was the last of the Wikihow's tips on how to seduce the hottest boy in the club. My seducing skills were weak and so I tried running my hand through my hair. Unfortunately the target was facing the opposite direction at the time so this step was completely useless. Not long after the boy and his friends had moved away to dance somewhere else. Was this due to my close proximity, wild-eye staring and off-kilter chat-up lines? Possibly. No way of knowing for sure though.

And so I found myself back where I started. Alone on the dancefloor. The tips hadn't explained what to say to my target or, more importantly, how to pull him if we did start talking. They were unspecific and often verged on terrifying the poor guy. Wikihow sucks. I was left feeling embarrassed, rejected and ashamed. That said, I didn't want to ruin my night, so I reverted to the one step that was working for and modified Wikihow's guide to better suit my needs. Step two people. Rinse and repeat.

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