Not everyone wants to be packed. My colleague tells me that men, often "aspoň trochu pod parou" ("at least a bit drunk"), have a habit of feeding her bad pick-up lines about how beautiful her eyes are. (source: Unsplash)
Here in Slovakia, people do not go out to pick up chicks or cruise for guys. Instead they go out to hook (zháčiť) or to pack (zbaliť) someone. When hooking or packing, everything you say counts. For this reason, here is a guide to the most commonly used words to help you in your quest, or perhaps just to understand what those guys at the next table are talking about.
First, find your age group. Adolescents (chalani - boys, baby - girls) tend to prefer zháčiť, and you might overhear the question "who did you hook Saturday?" ("koho si zháčil v sobotu?"). Meanwhile the older generations seem to prefer to zbaliť or to hunt (loviť) as in "I'm going on the hunt" ("Idem na lov").
Now a moment to expand on slang used to talk about the sexes. The word baba can suggest that the girl in question is young, naive, and attractive, though not really taken seriously by the speaker. Variants used for women include čaja, a word mainly used in the east of Slovakia and perhaps of Roma origin, and its diminutive čajka (literally "gull"), something like calling a girl a bird in English. From the same linguistic eastern source is the male equivalent, šrác.
To identify an attractive girl, there are a few phrases in common use, starting with "to je ale kosť", meaning "she is a bone". Do not worry, this does not have the same lewd implication as it does in English; it merely says "she's an attractive girl". Another variation is "ona je dobrá čaja", or "to je kočka" ("she is a cat"). If all this is true, you might say "stála by za hriech" - "she's worth a sin".
