The Beginners Guide to Beach Hookups

by Corky Carroll

OK, before we get too deep into this let me lay some groundwork here.  It was suggested to me by a longtime loyal reader that I do a story on, in his words, how to pick up girls at the beach.  This sort of lit up my long dormant imagination with ideas on the way I would have approached this subject a zillion years ago when I was first writing these columns for the Register.  The title that sprung to my heard was “A BEGINNERS GUIDE TO SCORING HOT CHICKS AT THE BEACH.”  That is the way I would have approached it way back then.  But, as we all know, times have changed.  RADICALLY.  I am pretty sure you can’t say that kind of thing anymore.  Yeah, I know I just said it, but only for the purpose of explaining what I am attempting to talk about.  The fact is you can’t say much of anything about anything or somebody is gonna get upset.  Gone are the days of even the thought of mentioning hot babes in floss string bikinis or even anything close to that.  When I first got this suggestion to do this story I figured that the best way to proceed was to get a lot of different opinions.  First off, I am old and married and haven’t even thought about this subject in centuries.  Yeah, I might have had some moves back in “the day,” but all those moves have, well, moved on.  So I posted the idea of this story on my FACEBOOK pages to get comments.  And I got tons of them, many warning me that this was gonna be a tricky subject to weigh in on given the current state of political beyond correctness and in this delicate, some would call conservative, medium. 
“You can’t use the term ‘chicks’ anymore.”  See, I didn’t know that. 
 
“You can’t say ‘pick up’ these days.”  Who knew?
 
“You can’t limit the story to girls, what about girls wanting to meet (I changed “pick up” to meet) dudes?”  Should I change dudes to guys?  And then this line of thought led to pretty much any kinda person wanting to hook up with any kinda other person, it is 2019.  You can’t single out anybody or you will get called a “sexist.”  Hey, this is all new ground for me.  A learning curve, if you will. 

---

Careful, a week down here is very addictive...

So, after getting schooled in what can or cannot be said in today's media, I still dare to bring you the results of my survey and what might or might not be helpful hints in the event that you might be one of those who are thinking the beach might be a good place to meet somebody new and interesting.  It was pointed out that, due to that fact that mostly everybody isn’t wearing a lot of clothes on the beach, it’s a great place to “shop” (not my word) because you can see what’s goin’ on without the camouflage of a pile of clothes covering up the “goods,” (again, not my word).  But, let me point out here one important thing.  There are people who are just looking for a “hook up.”  These are the ones who are the “shoppers.”  But, there are also those who are just wanting to meet somebody else and maybe strike up a friendship that might lead to more, or not.  Of course, not everybody is even in “the market,” so to speak.  One lady pointed out that she has a teenage daughter who goes to the beach and doesn’t need to be a “target for boys.”  I see where she is coming from, but then it is probably fair to assume that people are people and people are attracted to other people so that more often than not, and at any location including the beach, there is always gonna be some sort of “looking.”  Am I wrong on this?  Or are we just not supposed to talk about it anymore? 
 
Anyway, all this what we can say and not say aside, here, at last, are a few popular suggestions on meeting somebody at the beach.
 
Most popular answer from girls for guys was to offer to teach them to surf.  This came in at about five to one over any other suggestion.  And they also said to NOT offer to rub sunscreen on them.
 
Most popular answer from guys to other guys looking to meet girls was to take along a puppy.  No, really, this was by far the most posted advice.  My immediate reaction was who takes a puppy to the beach?  But then, what do I know?  They said girls always melt over a puppy.
 
Most popular suggestion from guys to girls was “just show up.”  I have no idea how to address that one.
 
If I had to venture my best advice on this it would be really pretty simple and cover everybody.  Smile and say “hi.”  See where it goes from there.  I had a pal that would always say, “A few of the right words and “the look” always does the trick.“ But, if you are not sure what a few of the rights words are and have no idea how to do “the look”, just smile and say “hi.”  I don’t think you can get into much trouble with that simple opening. 
 
Good luck on this, in case you might be one of those who might find this useful.  And I am sorry if I couldn’t give you a bit juicier advice, you might have to consult “Cosmo” for that kind of thing.