The Art of Conversation - Catherine Blyth [15]
➺ Rule seven: Pay attention and already you have a connection
The bonus of conventionality is that while performing your handshake, saying “Hi” or “Howdie,” your mind, if not quite on Reagan energy-saving mode, has space to take in the other person. So approach a new face like the start of a novel, magnetized for clues to an unfamiliar world.
Even handshakes reveal character, if only what a person wishes to project. Take note. Does he grip or squeeze? Lock eyes? Flick away? I tremble before knuckle-crunchers, and those pushy deal-closer types, who place a second hand on top, trapping me, then pump away, as if to draw deep on the well of fast-drying friendship.
As for secret signalers, Freemasons and so on, their clinches are no affair of mine.
CENTRAL CASTING
Ignore a person at the fringe of a conversation and he’ll soon go. Etiquette expert John Morgan explained:
In a curious way, until someone is introduced . . . socially they only half exist.
He didn’t mean this in a derogatory sense; rather, that recognition is all. It can create an advantage. In Ancient Rome senators hired nomenclators, who shadowed them around town, ready to whisper the correct form of address for approaching dignitaries, thereby enabling the senators to greet first, putting them in charge of the conversation. The same tactic is deployed by the internal editor in The Devil Wears Prada.
Such power play illuminates the dark game of greetings and introductions. If the first business is trading names, a close second is establishing terms of engagement, offering enough information about each other for talk to crack on apace. But don’t forget prestige is at stake: Little status signals flash away, so the art of introducing someone else is to cast them in their preferred light, then bathe in the reflected glory.
In the past deference codes were overt. You could tell how to treat someone by how he dressed, and caps were doffed according to what, or not, sat on another’s head (hatlessness being near to godlessness in times of epidemic head lice). In our socially mobile era, status is customized, making it harder to scan egos. At the corporate do, that unshaven, chain-smoking bum growling at all who graze his pungent biosphere will be the billionaire boss—his lack of grace, something for the “little people,” as effective a social barrier as a VIP’s velvet rope.
But although manners alter, the human needs they exist to service—especially pride—remain. And of all social injuries, most avoidable is bungling a name.
THE NAME GAME
Can’t afford a nomenclator? Remembering is easier with the antique style of introduction—“Zebedee, I’d like you to meet Aphra Jones. Aphra, allow me to introduce Zebedee Taylor.” But if this is de trop, why not repeat a name after it’s told to you?
And be generous with your own. When introduced, if you detect the slightest pause, say it. Say it introducing yourself, even if you’ve met before, especially if the other person’s name escapes you. In return, he should give you his. If not, prompt: remind him where you met. Equally, if it’s your job to introduce other people, start with someone whose name you know, pause, then smile; hopefully, others will take the cue.
But if they’re socially tone-deaf, own up. This can be positive: “I couldn’t forget you, but I’m afraid I’m hopeless at names.” Never, ever guess. (Sheila/Eileen, forgive me.)
Perhaps your memory is impeccable. Still, have a care how you show it. Some salesmen repeat clients’ names to fast-track rapport, creating a faint yet oddly powerful sense of obligation to be nice back. Personally, I loathe it. And while it’s good to drop a child’s name into a bedtime story if you feel her attention wander, would you do the same talking to an adult? Many do. But I know my name—why remind me?
Because someone else does not. To bring a fresh person into conversation, without breaking momentum, try a slick lateral introduction: “Zebedee Taylor, there you are. Aphra here was about to tell