@ the bar

The line: "Are you Black? I like your lips and your way in the world."

What I Heard: "You seem racially ambiguous, I think I'll reduce you to an appealing body part and show you my capacity for new age mind-speak."

Why It's Wack: You must think I'm a willing participant in your anthropological study. It's not generally a good idea to run a physical compliment and a pseudo-psychological analysis so close together. It makes the whole attempt (and thus, you) seem fake. Or creepy. Or both.

I Think What You Meant Was: "I want you to know I noticed something about you, but I don't want you to think I'm all about the physical, so I'll say something so you'll think I'm deep."

Next time, try: Starting out with a commonly socially-acceptable greeting (like "hello"), and save the physical compliments for later when you actually know a little bit about who I am and what's important to me.