Mute Emergency

I'm a single guy, and I just never know how to start conversations with girls. I have a sense of humor, but I'm bad at coming up with funny lines on the fly. I've thought of using a "line," but if I were a girl, hearing one would just make me annoyed. Do you have any advice on good conversation starters?

--Speechless

There's a reason the line from that chick flick is "You had me at hello" and not "You had me at 'Those jugs yours?'" Granted, it's better if you can be funny when hitting on girls. Evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller believes "humor production ability" is a "hard-to-fake" sign of intelligence in a potential partner. Research by Miller and others suggests he's right -- finding correlations between humor and "verbal creativity" and intelligence. But note "hard-to-fake." Trying to be funny when you aren't all that funny is about as successful a tactic as trying to remove someone's appendix when you aren't really a doctor. However, even if you aren't naturally funny, what you can be is genuine. To do this, just say something -- perhaps about something in the environment. Ask about that book she's carrying or whether she's survived the vegan Reuben. Maybe comment on the attire of the two armed men running out of the place with a bag of money. Just saying something is basically like opening a tiny door to see whether anything's behind it. If a woman finds you attractive, she'll pick up and respond -- and probably not by announcing that if you were the last man on earth, she'd develop a sexual attraction to trees.