CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, which ran for 9 seasons from 2005 to 2014, followed the story of Ted Mosby as he told his children in the year 2030 the long-winded tale about how he met their mother. Central to each of his stories were his four best friends: college roommate and long-time bestie Marshall and his wife Lily, Ted’s once love interest turned close friend Robin, and the womanizing playboy Barney.
To say Barney was promiscuous would be an understatement. He loved the ladies, was seemingly successful with them and would stop at nothing to get a girl he saw across the room. Sometimes, however, this led to some really inappropriate pick-up lines that would almost definitely result in a fierce slap in the face nowadays.
Soul Boner
Yes, these words actually came out of Barney’s mouth. He never held anything back and always made his intentions known. In this case, it was a compliment to himself more so than a pick-up line. Yes, even doing good was enough to make Barney randy.
“I feel like I’ve done so much good I have a ‘soul boner.’"
Oddly, Barney speaks these words while serving food to the less fortunate in a soup kitchen. Leave it to Barney to say the most inappropriate things at the most inappropriate time. But he did write a Playbook on how to pick up women, after all, so nothing surprises us about him.
Your Body is a Wonderland
Even though so much sleaze came out of his mouth, Barney weirdly never really came across as a sleazy person. But sometimes, he would drop a line like this one that would make us cringe. Would a line like this actually work these days? It might take a minute for a girl to pick up on what he means. The story, of course, is called Alice in Wonderland. So, well, you catch his drift.
“Your body is a wonderland and I want to be Alice.”
It’s almost repulsive, yet these such lines seemed to work again and again for Barney. Sometimes, though, they didn’t. And we’d have to applaud those women for turning their noses at such inappropriate commentary.
Bring On The Cheese
It’s a slight variation on standard cheesy pick-up lines like “I must be in heaven because I can see an angel.” Except Barney somehow manages to make it both cheesier and more vulgar.
“Are your pants made out of a bunch of tiny pictures, because I can definitely see myself in them.”
Not only is this line he delivered inappropriate and sexually suggestive, but he also manages to stroke his own ego at the same time. Typical Barney.
Chicken and…Sex?
It seems like with each line Barney delivers to a desired companion, he gets more and more crass every time. In this case, he boldly suggests dinner followed by intercourse.
“What do you say we go out to dinner, have some chicken… maybe some sex?”
Whether this would be how his date ended up or not, the fact that he tried to pick up women with such a line is baffling. Though watching Barney in action on the show was always entertaining, nonetheless.
No Talking
We won’t even begin to try and explain what Barney was insinuating here, which was clearly sexual and clearly inappropriate. He’s essentially suggesting that there’s no point wasting one’s breath on silly acts like talking when the mouth can be used for so much more.
“There are so many things to do with the human mouth. Why waste it on talking?”
If a line like this worked on a girl, it was certainly not the type of girl you’d want to date long-term or bring home to mom.
Happy Halloween
Spoken to a girl at a rooftop Halloween party as Barney donned a devil costume, he pointed to the perky devil ears perched atop his head and declared that he was a “horny devil.”
“I’m also a horny devil.”
This line is at least a little cornier than some of his other vulgar and more sexually suggestive ones. Nonetheless, it is still somewhat inappropriate, especially when saying it to someone you just met. But Barney was notorious for such casual banter, especially when he was constantly pulling scams to meet ladies, like pretending to be a wealthy businessman at the airport or interviewing nannies when he didn’t even have a child.
Have We Met?
This line isn’t just inappropriate, but it indicates that Barney has been with so many women, and had so many one-night stands, that it is quite possible he might end up trying to pick up a woman whom he had already been with.
Barney: “Excuse me, did I sleep with you and then screw you over?” Woman: “No, I don’t think so.” Barney: “Dammit! In that case, would you like to go out?”
Meanwhile, he makes this perfectly known to the woman he’s trying to pick up with this line, suggesting that perhaps she might be attracted to the fact that he has a ton of notches on his belt and is just looking for a single night of passion.
Daddy Issues
Someone needs to tell Barney that no girl wants to think of daddy while being picked up by or flirting with a man. It’s unclear where the origins of this pick-up line came from, but chances are it would make most girls turn around and run as fast as they could in the opposite direction.
“Daddy’s home…”
It’s rude, awkward, and highly inappropriate, and a line like this will never attract the right kind of girl. Then again, maybe the wrong kind of girl is exactly what Barney was looking for with this line anyway. He even went so far as to refer to his own father as “granddaddy” when bringing him along to a club to pick up women.
Licking the Liberty Bell
This one requires some context. After heading to the airport with Ted to pick someone up (which Ted thought meant provide a ride for someone who had just flown in but later discovered that Barney meant something else) the pair ended up flying to Philadelphia and embarking on an adventure. The idea was to do legendary things, and when they came across the Liberty Bell, Barney thought for some strange reason that licking it would be legen- (wait for it) -dary.
“I wanna lick you all over like the Liberty Bell.”
So when he meets a woman who works there, he believes this is a fitting pick-up line. Because, well, he did, in fact, lick the Liberty Bell.
No Mincing of Words
Barney really didn’t mince words when it came to what his intentions were with the women he’d meet. And some of the pick-up lines he got away with were absolutely atrocious, such as this one.
“Come with me if you want to bang.”
I mean, who really walks up to someone and says such a thing? In today’s day and age, this actually does happen in some respect, but through apps, swipe rights, and digital connections. So perhaps we could call Barney the mid-‘00s Tinder. Before apps like Tinder, there was Barney Stinson who said what people sometimes imply through dating apps, except he did it right to a girl’s face, the good ol’ fashioned way.
