I am a terrible party-goer when I don't know anyone at the party. I have a tendency to latch on and just hang out with a few people all night, rather than get around and talk to different people. Part of that is because I don't especially enjoy niceties and would rather engage in more in-depth conversations with people. But of course, a bigger part of that is because I am not at all an extrovert - the two are surely related.
So this morning on NPR Steve Inskeep did a piece on Jeanne Martinet, author of The Art of Mingling. Of particular note for those of you who happen to get trapped in a corner over by the hors d'oeuvres with me (so you can't even use "getting a bite to eat" as an excuse to leave) are her methods of escaping a conversation:
The human sacrifice: Where you escape a boring conversation by grabbing some other poor guest and throwing him into the conversation in your place.
The smooth escape: This is for getting out in the middle of someone's long arduous and boring story when it would be rude to just leave in the middle. It involves three steps: (1) Take control of the conversation (i.e. interrupt and respond to an irrelevant detail of their story) , (2) change the subject, (3) then make your break.
Read more and listen to the story here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6595823
on the iPod:
Super XX Man, Vol. XI : A Better Place
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