PARTIES
I wish I was more of a party-goer. Maybe if my socializing skills were better it’d be easier finding a job. At a friend’s company Christmas party, it certainly didn’t help my job prospects to ask the CFO where he got his wig.
When I go to a function I tend to stand by the buffet and concentrate on eating. Chocolate- covered strawberries are among my favorites. I don’t care about the other guests. Let them wait their turn while I pop six or so into my mouth.
Many party hosts try to slow consumption by choosing foods that aren’t easy to deal with. Peel ‘n eat shrimp and barbequed spare ribs are in that category. These foods are intentionally messy and prohibitive to conversation, as they require skill and concentration to consume.
Getting the shell off a shrimp can take two hands. The little suckers are slippery. Even experts like me, who can grab the shrimp with our teeth and extract it from the shell using only one hand, might lose a shrimp or two. And not many women will be polite about removing an errant shrimp from their cleavage.
I sometimes use these messy foods to my advantage, though. It keeps people at bay who I’d rather not spend much time talking to. People generally avoid a person with a ring of barbeque sauce around their mouth or cocktail sauce dripping from their fingers.
Of course, there’re always people who don’t pick up on such subtle clues. I have a knack for attracting people I can’t get away from. At the Christmas party, I made the mistake of starting a conversation with an older gentleman. He happened to be parked over the nachos I wanted.
I thought we’d have a basic conversation about the weather. But he proceeded to tell me each and every clever thing he’d done since high school. And I made the mistake of feigning interest by asking him questions. So I was a goner. I was only able to make a break for it by faking a sudden bout of diarrhea.
I knew things had to change. I checked out a CD set from the library on how to improve one’s social skills. I listened to the entire set of ten discs, picking up some valuable suggestions.
In the situation above, what I was supposed to do was ask the old guy a question to switch the focus of the conversation to me. Or else pull someone else into the conversation as the sacrificial lamb. That way I could make a graceful exit. I don’t know, though. Not even a nuclear holocaust would’ve derailed this guy.
I learned that in joining a group conversation, you wait until you hear the participants discussing something you can comment on. At the next party I went to, I put this advice into practice. I interrupted a conversation on a local Chinese restaurant by blurting out, “Hey, did any of you hear about the sudden scarcity of feral cats? I’m going to be on the lookout for fur-balls in my Lo Mein from now on.”
I had meant this to be funny. But my comment was greeted with dead silence and stares. The conversation picked up again as if I hadn’t said anything. I slunk off in confusion. It turned out the men in the group I’d sought to join were not only the owners of the restaurant I’d insulted, but also the hosts of the party. Oops.
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