Meet the Asshole Who Has Bothered "Over 500" Women on the Subway
Brian Robinson, 49-year-old subway pickup artist, spoke to the New York Post in a piece that ran today, titled "Meet the man who has met 'about 500' women on the subway," about his triumphs and failures "since becoming a railway Romeo in 1999." The besuited roué boasts winning dates with "about 500 women" in New York City's underground transit system, and, holy shit, he sounds like a nightmare.
Every woman knows it: the feeling of dread that passes over you—you, just trying to get to where you're going in the hot, crowded, already unpleasant subway—when you realize some dude is going to try to chat you up. A healthy percentage of the time, it seems, that dude is Brian Robinson.
"I would always say, 'Is this local or express?' and then say, 'I hear an accent: Where are you from?' It's an awesome door-opener — 97 percent of all NYC women are from someplace else."
"Funny you should ask, I'm actually from a disgusting garbage dump covered in maggots and rotting filth, I'm surprised you didn't recognize the accent?"
"No matter what place she says, say, 'Wow, I've always wanted to visit your country/city, etc. . . . do you have e-mail?" Robinson suggested.
"What's e-mail?"
He tells the Post that the trick is to express interest in who she is and what she does, "not trying to overtly hit on her." Ha-ha, of course the interest in who she is and what she does is feigned in an effort to get her e-mail (if she has one) and, one day, into her pants. But she doesn't know that!
(She knows that.)
The Post had the pleasure of tagging along with Robinson on a recent subway pickup outing where he "innocently asked" Jasmine, a 27-year-old woman just trying to get to work, or whatever, without having to answer fake questions from slimy dudes trying to fuck her, "Excuse me, does this train run along Sixth Avenue or Eighth Avenue?"
When asked by the Post, she called Robinson's pickup technique "engaging" and—trying so hard to be nice about it, god bless her—"persistent."
Another woman who gave Robinson her business card after a few minutes of chatting said, "He seemed like a nice enough person." Ooh, what a catch! "He was cordial," she added, "He wasn't aggressive." Yes, these are the nicest things women—when pressed—can say about a man who try to pick them up on the subway.
The reviews haven't all been underwhelmingly semi-neutral, though. Robinson admits that on at least one occasion a woman nearly maced him:
"One time a woman reached into her purse and it looked like she had a little bottle of Mace. She said, 'I don't have time for this.' She pulled it out — and then I got up and left."
If you're interested in learning more (perhaps someday you, too, can harass over 500 women until they either mace you or agree to go on one date!) Robinson has a book out this week on his craft. It's called 69 Ways to Bother People Who Want to Be Left the Fuck Alone, just kidding.
It's called something else!
