Turn ‘Background’ People into Allies At social gatherings, we plain ole people, citizens and invited partygoers don’t ‘work rooms’ like politicians do. Instead we beeline toward those we know and like, those who are or might become important to us, and those who arouse our flirty glands. And we make perfunctory and sometimes grudging conversation with all others as we’re introduced. To us, most of those in that room remain ‘other people at the party.’ That room full of people you in stinctively regard as ‘background’ people, no more important to you than ‘background’ music or wallpaper, may contain precisely the clout and qualifications you need. Or could use. Or may need. Or may be able to use. They may be just the ones to marry you, enrich you, lift and color your life, or at least speak well of you whenever your name comes up. They will not bestir themselves to hoist your fortune in any of these capacities, however, if you let them remain as ‘background’ people. So why don’t you move out smartly and see how many allies you can enlist—not just by talking to them, but by talking to them in a manner calculated to make them talk.
Accord Attention Some people manage to bore you while they’re praising you. It’s hard to get bored, though, when another person whose proven his worth by handing you a nice, original compliment seems genuinely interested in knowing more. We don’t all have equal money or power. But we all do have equal reserves of attention and the ability to accord it whenever and to whomever we select. Too bad most people roll along u tterly oblivious to the power this ability to confer attention can bring. This ‘resource’ is too valuable to waste. It is precious fuel for the ever-hungry furnaces of conversation.
Break the Glass Bring yourself to accept the awesome obligation of getting things started. One good burst of energy and effort to start a good conversation will send you on a flying motorcycle crashing through the brittle glass of boredom. That’s the only h ard part: summoning up the moral reserves to say to yourself, “This party is going to be my entire life for the next ninety minutes. I can be bored or boring, interested or interesting. I can reach out and break that glassware that separates people, or I can stay here within my own glass cage and sulk.
Penetrate the Ostensible There is no art to initiating conversation. There is an art to initiating meaningful conversation. ‘Small talk’—the heat, the rain, the ball game, the election, the media scandal—are excusable as openers; but if you don’t move quickly into richer talk turf, you’ll be stranded in an unmemorable exchange, exposing nothing unique about either of you.
So Penetrate the Ostensible of what is on the collective mind. Whatever the news is, that is the ostensible story. Penetrate its surface-level truths and expose alternative premises, motivations, and storylines that may lie beneath the public perception.
Look Attentive Encourage whoever is talking with your attention—by merely posing convincingly as a listener. If you’ve ever wondered how oxygen feels with all that power to make dying flames flare up again, you’re in for a moment. You’ll feel that identical power just by making up your mind you’re going to look attentive. Look attentive—that’s all—and you’ll know you’re the cause of that sudden surge of happy energy that overtakes whoever speaking. He simply not accustomed to listeners like you.
Uncover the Remarkable We all consider ourselves multidimensional people. We see others, however, as unidimensional. They are all simple, non-differentiated, single-cell, single-cylinder Johnny-one-notes. Get off the game of small talk and make the new game: ‘How quickly can I ferret out your specialness and let you know I’ve spotted your multidimensionality?’ He sells insurance, and baffles antiqu e mirrors in his basement workshop. She imports batik from Indonesia, and finishes near the front in every marathon for women over fifty. He’s in the advertising business, and scales glaciers in Greenland.
Add Your Wrinkle Too many people regard being colorful or dull as immutable conditions. It rarely occurs to dull people (a) that they themselves are dull and (b) that they can do something about it. You can. You can get colorful material the same place comics get colorful material. Am I flat out recommending you take jokes, lines, quips, proverbs, mottoes and aphorisms you see and hear and use them to make people think you’re brilliant? You bet I am—but with style, technique, judgement, flexibility, and honesty . Let those with brilliance to say the things we wish we’d thought of first continue to say them. And let the rest of us learn to harvest those fruits and scatter those seeds, preferably with credit but giving them new reach and new life in any event. Whatever makes you say, ‘I wish I’d said that,’ is now part of your verbal ‘wardrobe.’ It’s you. Write it down. Then add your personal wrinkle—your adaptation—to its use.
Cultivate a Mood
We’re all more likely to say yes if we’re in the mood to say yes. The mood is best achieved not by exhortation but by conversation; by talking in such a way as to make the other person want to talk back. That takes a little time. And that’s worth a little time. No language yet has a word for it, but we’re aiming to achieve a breakthrough; a forced communications chore into a free-flowing delight; a conversation you didn’t know how to b egin into one you hope will never end. This will lead you to getting what you want out of a talk. If you want someone to say yes, don’t ask briefly and bluntly for what you want. Instead, take your time and cultivate a mood between you and that person; engender a relationship with that person that will make his ‘yes’ much more likely.
Give Good Feelings When entering a conversation with someone of superior knowledge on a certain subj ect—an ‘Intimidator’—make him know early on th at your inclination is not to conceal ignorance, but to eliminate it. Show the Intimidator you’re sensitive enough to ask if he has time to contribute to your knowledge. Make the Intimidator talk to you about something he’s knowledgeable about. He will be given a good feeling being appointed ‘professor’, deputized as an expert in something about which he knew and cared. And that feeling you give him will, in return, give you the best head start toward accomplishing your immediate mission. Feelings are more important than meaning. People may not remember the meaning of what they heard, but they will remember the manner and mood in which it was communicated. Life is not an issues poll. Life is an approval rating.
Probe Gingerly When a phony psychic works a client, he gingerly probes around through the client’s life, hoping to score with some good guesswork. He may say, “Your late husband had an interesting attitude toward animals.” The psychic is hoping for a bulls-eye, for which he’ll get credit. But in either case, he wins relevancy in the client’s eyes: when he’s right, the client will tell him more; when he’s wrong, the client will tell him what’s right.
Women: Never Try to Impress Attractive women spurn wealthy, powerful, brilliant, talented, impressive men because they try too hard to make too much of an impression too quickly. They created the impression that those women couldn’t achieve great things for themselves. The secret to a woman’s affection is simply: never try to impress.
I didn’t say, “Don’t impress.” I didn’t say, “Don’t be impressive.” I said, “Never try to impress.” You become truly impressive only when you’re not trying to be. The objective is to make that other person leave the encounter with you glad she had it and looking forward to more. The biggest error we make, especially in the case of men trying to make women want more, is supposing we have t o impress. Wrong. Dangerous.
Women: Don’t be ‘One of Them’ The overwhelming majority of the population have no wrinkles in their conversation. Their traffic is subject, verb, and object unmodified by colorful adjectives and adverbs. Some extraordinarily attractive women tell how they inwardly cheer for the ‘new’ man, the hunk who hasn’t said anything yet. They want him to open his mouth and say something, anything remotely clever; anything with a ‘wrinkle.’ And so often they just don’t.
Women: ‘Pickup’ Constantly Starting a conversation with someone you spot on the street, in a plane or on a train strikes many as impossible and, in fact, undesirable. It has a bad name: pickup. But what kind of bigotry is it that suggests that those you’re officially in troduced to are necessarily preferable to those you run across in your travels in between introductions? Linguists don’t use grammar only when interpreting at the United Nations. Singers don’t try to stay in key only during major performances. And conversation skills are much too important to be applied only when you think you may be in love. They should be honed and tested at all times.
Women: Probe Intimacy Early In the old movies we knew when our protagonists were falling in love by the background music. By the time they fell into each other’s arms he, she, and we in the audience were all ready for it. Why wait that long in the real world to find out if that outcome is mutually desired? An unskilled attempt to achieve an Aperture of Intimacy—often executed as coming on much too strongly—is a major offense. With sophisticated men and women, though, the opposite—prudish avoidance of anything ‘personal’—can be almost as much of a disqualifying offense. Skilled attempts to reach that aperture help you (a) stimulate early real conversation with those who welcome it, (b) allow for gentle disengagement from those who don’t, and (c) make sure you waste no time telling the difference. A good technique is to try lots of cool talk about hot topics: husbands, wives, relationships, quarrels, jealousy, male and female roles, sex objects, pornography, eroticism and holistic health. Never let on that you’re talking ‘how about you and me?’, however, until you get a clear response from the other side.
Women: Open Apertures Obliquely In opening Apertures, the shortest distance between two points is an angle. The drift is intentional. Apertures open most easily when t he conversation veers into love, lust, passion, sex, marriage, scandal—but a short provocative comment is all that’s needed to test the waters. Is there ‘play’ in her reaction? Is there ‘give’? Is she comfortable? Is she enjoying it? Is she glad you brought it up? Women flirt. Women hint. Women invite response. Men move.
Assume the Burden Force yourself to be conscious that there is a conversation locked up there somewhere between you and the person you’re allegedly ‘talking to’ and that it’s your job to find it, free it, and let it prance. You will sponsor the conversation. You will free the conversation. You will nurture the conversation. You don’t need an elaborate strategy or game plan. The lumps will melt, the stone walls will vaporize, faster and faster each time you remember one of our very first lessons, the most important one of all: Assume the Burden.
