Dialogue exercise:

Dennis: Hi, I’m Dennis.

Bar Girl: Hi.

Dennis: What are you drinking?

Bar Girl: Hemlock.

Dennis: You hardly seem the gadfly type. What cruel device of fate has sent the poison to your lips?

BG: Sorry, I’m not interested.

Dennis: Really? Even after I picked up on the Socrates reference? Or was that a trap? A little intellectual honey for the over educated barflies?

BG: Something like that?

Dennis: O.k. no harm no foul. Just out of curiosity what was the correct answer?

BG: I’ll know it when I hear it.

Dennis: Like podcast porn. Gotcha. Well, enjoy your evening.

BG: What, that’s it?

Dennis: Now I’m confused. Usually when a girl says she’s not interested, there is a singular interpretation.

BG:Unless she wants you to fight a little. Unless she was just waiting for the second bite to set the hook.

Dennis: No thanks.

BG: No thanks?

Dennis: Listen. We’re one of the only species where the female does the peacocking. Even with peacocks it’s the male. So, in defiance to the rest of the animal kingdom, you, the female, don your Friday night best, sit at the bar with lips that can be seen from low earth orbit...your, ah, femininity amplified via silk contraptions with levers and pulleys that would make a greek shipbuilding scratch his oily head.

BG: Point being?
Dennis: So, we’re confused. The men. Somewhere inside this mammalian brain, we’re thinking, this isn’t right. Shouldn’t I just stand in a field and flex, maybe sing the song of my people, until a woman deems me genetically viable, bends over and presents?

BG: Sounds barbaric.

Dennis: It’s more honest that this debasement of nature.

BG: So sing me the song of your people.

Dennis: Even if I did know all the words to that Right Said Fred song. I wouldn’t waste my breath, expend those precious calories to someone who’s just fishing.

BG: What if the bait were irresistible? (uncrosses legs)

Dennis: I’m too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt...