There are a number of lines men would love to hear from a woman — among them, “I’ve really enjoyed my drink, and now I’d like to enjoy you” and, “Don’t you have a tattoo I should be licking?

However, there’s what men love to hear, and there’s what’s actually effective when you’re seeking a relationship that lasts long enough for you to learn to pronounce the guy’s name: “Is that Fred, like ‘Fred’?”

Evolutionary psychologist Maryanne Fisher and her colleagues researched which pickup lines, used by women on men, are most effective.

“Effectiveness,” Fisher writes, “was defined as success in securing a phone number or agreeing to meet again.”

Pickup lines fall into three categories: “direct,” “innocuous,” and “flippant.” 

“Direct lines clearly convey interest” through unambiguous requests and flattering remarks, explains Fisher — for example: “Want to have a drink together?” “You have really nice eyes,” and “Can I have your number?”

Innocuous lines, on the other hand, “hide the intention of the speaker and act more as conversation starters.” Examples include: “Can you recommend a good drink?” “I’ve seen you before; do you work here?” and “Where did you get that tattoo? Did it hurt?”

Flippant lines involve humor — or, um, attempts at it, like an example Fisher references from previous research: “Can I get a picture of you so I can show Santa what I want for Christmas?” Another flippant charmer: “Is that really your hair?”

Fisher explains that, like innocuous lines, “flippant lines are theorized to protect the user from rejection, as they can disguise a failed attempt as a simple question or a joke.” Unfortunately, both flippant and innocuous lines also seem to “protect” the user’s target from knowing that the purveyor is interested.

Fisher’s research, like previous research, found that men preferred direct pickup lines to the innocuous and flippant ones. This isn’t surprising. Men tend to be bad at picking up hints, and many are terrified of overestimating a woman’s interest and waking up to their name hashtagged with #MeToo. 

When a woman uses a direct pickup line, and especially when she spreads additional direct lines around in conversation, she’s telling a guy she’s interested in seeing more of him, as opposed to seeing whether she should Mace him.

Unfortunately, there’s some nuance to the Fisher team’s findings — what might be called (sorry!) beauty inequality. Direct pickup lines were preferred by men when the women using them were really attractive. Direct lines were less effective for less attractive women — except when they were scantily clad.

Also, men will tell you they love when women ask them out. (Of course they do. It’s like they’re standing on a dock fishing when, out of nowhere, a plate of perfectly cooked salmon flies out of the water and lands on the bench beside them.) Unfortunately, evolutionary psychology research suggests that for women, overt pursuit of men, like asking them out, is a risky strategy.

The research comes out of what evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers, in 1972, called “parental investment theory”: Because women have a high potential cost from any sex act — pregnancy and a kid to feed — they evolved to be the choosier sex, and men coevolved to expect female aloofness, especially from women with high “mate value.” When women seem too eager, men tend to devalue them, seeing them as desperate or just hookup material.

Synthesizing Fisher and Trivers, my takeaway is that you should be unambiguous in showing interest in a guy — and ideally, repeatedly unambiguous. Use flattering remarks to make your interest plain, but stop short of highly sexual remarks, which are likely to mark you as hookup fodder, or asking a guy out. Your goal should be flattering a guy into understanding that you’re interested in him. This allows you to see whether he’s got real interest in you — enough for him to lay his ego on the line and hit you up for your number.

Do this regularly — being flirtatiously forward — and you should come to understand that you have the power to summon men into your life. Maybe not all the men you want, but more than you would have thought. This, in turn, should keep you from going all desperate — to the point where you seek out men you’d previously, um, overlooked... like that construction worker: “Hey, you! You in the hard hat! You had me at ‘Those boobs real?’”

Adultery swim

People in relationships do develop little traditions — like coming home every night and checking the closet for their boyfriend’s sex partners.

 The question is, does the skeleton that your boyfriend’s yanked out of the closet point to a heavily populated closet in your collective future? This is ultimately a question of whether he’s a cheater — a person psychologically ”wired” to be prone to cheating — or a person who once cheated. There is a distinction. Sometimes, somebody cheats just to see what it’s like to walk on the bad boy/bad girl side — the (heh) Socio Path. 

And sometimes, in the moment (SEXXXXX!), somebody who’s generally considerate puts their partner’s feelings on “ignore.”

However, evolutionary psychologists David Buss and Todd Shackelford found there seems to be a cheater personality — a trio of personality traits common to people prone to infidelity: narcissism, low conscientiousness, and “psychoticism.”

That last one — psychoticism — suggests an ax-killing hobby, but it’s actually researcher-ese for a combination of impulsivity, unreliability, and an inability to delay gratification. 

Narcissism, of course, is the “Me! Me! Me!” personality trait, reflected in self-absorption, self-importance, exploitativeness, and an empty well in the empathy department. Low conscientiousness is the personality trait of the inconsiderate, reflecting disorganization, poor impulse control, and an inability to delay gratification.

Yet another factor is a personality trait that psychologist Marvin Zuckerman named “sensation-seeking.” People “high in sensation seeking” crave a variety of new, complex, and intense sensations and experiences and will take physical and social risks to get them. 

Talk is cheap — especially for the ethically sketchy, the morally underfunded. Look at the guy’s behavior and thinking — in your brief past and in the weeks and months to come. See whether it adds up to good character or reflects the cheater personality markers. 

Sometimes cheaters change, but personality traits have a substantial genetic component, so cheaters mostly just change who they’re cheating with. 

If your boyfriend’s moral compass is secretly set on Booty Call North, you’re setting yourself up for many joyful years of checking his shirts for some hussy’s self tanner and trying really hard to believe that he only goes to strip clubs for the music.

Best of reflux!  

My late Yorkie, Lucy, now resides in a tiny urn in my living room; I didn’t have her taxidermied and mounted on an old roller skate so I could take her on walks like nothing’s changed.

After a breakup, it’s hard to go your separate ways if you never stop being together. Though your situation sounds like “Brokeback Mountain” for straight people (“Bro, it’s super hard to quit ya!”), there might be something else keeping your ex-fiancee around.

Ancestral humans became a cooperative species, living and working together in groups, leading to a need to identify (and avoid) the takers among the givers. We seem to have evolved to act in ways that elevate our reputation, which is basically a social credit check for the sort of people we are. 

For example, evolutionary psychologist Bo Winegard and his colleagues theorize that reputation promotion is one of the evolutionary functions of grief. They see the expression of grief as a form of advertising for our character, showing us to be loyal and committed allies who “form devoted bonds” with people in our lives.

This zombie fiancee thing — the ex-fiancee who keeps coming back and eating your well-being — may be your ex’s way (probably subconscious) of promoting herself as a good friend, a caring person who doesn’t just shut the door on somebody she’s romantically done with. 

This could help her seem more attractive to the next guy — which is surely help you aren’t interested in providing, especially at the expense of your need to heal.

Toss the hinting. Tell your ex-fiancee that this maintaining-a-friendship business does not work for you, and ask her to stop contacting you for now and/or until you let her know otherwise.

Cutting off contact will help you get used to the new normal —  you and your former fiancee walking off into the sunset apart, in totally different directions... at least until your new wife is in the delivery room, giving birth to your first child.