Talents for Living

Okay, Situational Extroverts or garden variety introverts, this blog is all for you. Here are some tips on getting through that dinner party, gathering or get together.

Do you remember Felix the Cat? He had a bag of tricks and he could perform miracles from that little bag…you need a similar bag of tricks.

The first item in your bag of tricks is you, just simply and elegantly be you. Don’t try to tell someone else’s jokes or stories, don’t dress like someone else or talk like someone else, don’t echo someone else’s opinions. Just be, honest to goodness, you, it works, most of the time.

Secondly, remember people’s names, you’ll go a long way toward making fast friends and a good impression if you’ll just take the effort to remember the names of the people you’re meeting, it’s a very simple common courtesy. How many times have you heard someone say to you, “What’s your name again…I’m really bad with names”. Not a very impressive thing to say is it? What that person is really saying is, “Hey I’m a jackass and I have no interest in investing the three seconds it will take to memorize your name”. Learning a name is a valuable tool it can get you out of a scrape later on in the evening. Here’s how, say you want to get the attention off yourself, it’s important and smart to have a “go to” guy or girl in the room and if you know names it’s easy to point across the room and say out loud, “Sean has a great story about that”. Bingo…all eyes go that way. Sean is now the center of attention and you can once again scurry off to a corner.

The third item in your bag of tricks is just that…tricks…there are some very easy to learn and very effective coin, match, rubber band or toothpick tricks that you can whip out for one person or the whole crowd.

The purpose of these tricks is not to draw attention to yourself but quite the opposite, you are drawing attention to the illusion. And in the moments when the partiers are asking each other, “how’d he do that?”, you can vanish once again into that very special corner that has become very comfy for you. The book Sneaky Feats is chalk full of very quick and easy illusions.

Another item in your bag of tricks should be knowledge, be full of general knowledge, but most importantly, learn and know stuff most people don’t know. For instance, did you know that the little plastic thingy on the end of your shoelace is called an aglet? Or that one of the guys who helped develop the first flush toilet was named Crapper? Sir Thomas Crapper? These tidbits of generally useless Jeopardy knowledge can come in very handy.

To Be or Not to Be….that is the question.

And that’s about all that most folks can recite of Hamlet’s riff to Ophelia…learn this one piece of Shakespeare and you’ll be a hit at any gathering.

http://www-tech.mit.edu/Shakespeare/hamlet/hamlet.3.1.html

Learn the preamble to the constitution or a few classic poems. Learn all the US president’s names or the names of the states in reverse alphabetical order, at the very least learning the states, capitals, major cities and attractions of each state will give you something to say to anyone you meet, after all everyone is from somewhere. All very impressive parlor tricks, again, designed to get the attention off of you.

Remember that when you see someone on TV or on stage, most of their witty comments and banter are either scripted or planned in advance. Have your own collection of carefully planned “ad libs”, so that when a situation arises you can throw in a zinger or two from across the room…then vanish again.

The point of all this is not to make you the “life of the party” or to make you seem like a showoff or know it all. But it’s to give you some tools and techniques to help you survive and also often thrive in uncomfortable situations.

Most of these “tricks” will take some time and effort…but no pain no gain, right? The payoff will far outweigh up front sacrifice and the results are fun.

And finally here’s my favorite thing to do at Christmas time. In most craft or party stores near Christmas they have jingle bell necklaces, one single Christmas bell on a red or gold cord, a spiffy addition to any party ensemble, male, female or in between.

These bells are usually under a buck and I buy 20 of them every Christmas. I wear these bells to parties, I wear them when I’m out Christmas shopping, I wear them throughout the season. Always, and I mean EVERYTIME, I wear one of those little one dollar bells someone will mention it, like, “Hey, love your jingle bell” or “How cute” or something along those lines.

Here’s the fun part, whenever somebody says something about the bell I take it off my neck and put it around theirs. You would not believe the reactions I get from this simple little gift. I’ve gotten bear hugs from strangers, tears from several and yes a few outright refusals but 98% of the recipients are touched by this little bell and for those few seconds magic happens. The Spirit of Christmas is alive in that cheap, tacky, one dollar jingle bell.

So, Situational Extroverts and introverts alike, take heart this Holiday Season there is help for us all.

Be yourself… remember names… listen… give someone a bell… ask questions… make a coin disappear… drink egg nog… recite Shakespeare… go home… you’re a hit.

And, finally that night as you drift off to sleep, you’ll snooze soundly knowing that you’ve made it through another party… and it was, after all, kinda fun. You’ll sleep not only with visions of sugarplum fairies dancing in your head but also with the knowledge that there are approximately ten million bricks in the Empire State Building.