by Sarah Nicole
In the quest for modern lovin’, you can do one of two things. You can put on your highest heels and your hardest-partying dress, go sit pretty in the corner of your local meet market, and make eyes at Mr. Not Totally Wrong. After waiting half the night for him to notice, you can let him buy you the house white and ply you with pickup lines: Do you come here often? Are you having fun? And do people ever tell you how much you look like Natalie Portman?

Or, you can forgo the requisite bullshit, forget the choreographed song-and-dance of q’s and a’s, and get straight to the point—which, let’s be real, doesn’t tend to involve talk. (Except, of course, the dirty kind.)

Think of the famous classroom scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, in which a pretty coed writes “love” and “you” on her eyelids, then blinks slowly at her dreamy professor. She doesn’t have a single line in the movie, but every guy who’s seen it remembers her vividly, long after he’s forgotten the plot. Who needs dialogue? Sometimes, the best way to get your Indiana Jones is to toss out the script and start with the action.

But first, a little face time. In lieu of conversation, let your lipstick do the talking. Yes, lipstick. You want him to take you on movie and make-out dates? Fine. Put on your passion(less) fruit glosses and wallflower-scented balms. Want him to take you now? Put on the grown-up stuff. Scarlet lips are equal parts harlot and femme fatale; they say you won’t be screwed around, but you do want to get screwed. Find the right shade of red, and you won’t even need to read the rest of this column. Promise.

Once he’s noticed you, why wait for him to get liquid-courageous enough to stumble into your lap? Watch him for a few minutes, see what he’s drinking. If it’s clear, steer clear. Otherwise, order another from the bartender and have it sent over with a note from “the girl with the red lips”.

And if that’s too classy for you, try something a little… ballsier. My friend Jon fondly recalls the time when a girl he’d seen around, but never spoken to, approached him in a club and straight-up grabbed his dick. They never found much to talk about, but they did have some incredibly hot sex.

Of course, the best approach is always your own. In the art of picking up, there are no rules to follow—just instincts. I once spent a summer’s night falling in love with a boy from across the crowded dance floor of a college bar. He wasn’t exactly my style, but he had some of his own: fresh ink, cool kicks and a totally un-self-conscious way of busting a move that made every girl in the place want to move with him. I watched as one Aritzia Barbie after another teetered over to drunkenly yell-whisper in his ear. I knew they were all using the same lines: Do you come here often? Are you having fun? And do people ever tell you how much you look like Jared Leto?

I didn’t say anything. At the end of the night, I swiped a pen from a bartender, grabbed the boy’s arm and wrote my phone number on it. The pen didn’t work, but the trick did—I woke up at four a.m. to a most welcome ringing. Easy. Less so? Explaining his repeat attempt at a booty call to my new boyfriend the next weekend… but that’s a whole other how-to.