In today’s funny papers: flirting with stupidity

If I started quoting all the moronic things I read in newspapers, I wouldn’t have time for anything else (including reading newspapers). But this one really deserves to be shared. The good people of Delhi Times, bless their collective soul, have a story headlined “If you are a flirt, read on…” in today’s edition. This is a collection of Tips for Flirting, and my favourite is this one:

Imply that you’re a stud
Use sexual innuendo to indirectly convey this message. For example, suppose you're at your place making a drink for a woman and she says, "Wow, you're good at that." Look at her square in the eye and say, "I'm good at a lot of things." She'll get the hint that you're a stud.

And then there’s the bit that advises the guy to say “Do you always receive, or do you like to give at times too?” when he’s bringing his female guest a cup of tea.

Around this point I was starting to wonder if anyone at Delhi Times ever gets laid. But then I found a nice little subtext to all this. I was searching for the article on the TOI website and while nothing showed up in the “search this website” section, when I searched “Web” I found this piece on a site called AskMen.com. And well, ho-hum, yes, the DT article has picked up six of the 10 tips on this page and reproduced them more or less verbatim. The only notable change is that “Spain” has been replaced by “Delhi” in one sentence:

If you find out a woman is from Delhi, you can say to her, “Hmm…you know what they say about women from Delhi, don’t you?” She will get the hint.

And no, I’m not jumping onto the plagiarism soapbox again. But I have to say I was disappointed that these gems of wisdom didn’t come from someone working in our own venereal, sorry venerable, city supplement. Still, here’s the introduction to the printed piece, which presumably is original:

Did you know that talking about sex with a woman can actually turn her on? However, if not done the right way, a man can end up coming across as “creepy”, or even worse, get beaten up.

Quite.