Making People Talk

by Barry M Farber

  If the Intimidator’s face shows he’s appreciating being reminded of Maryland as a football power reincarnated under Jim Tatum, don’t take that as your cue to keep going about how big Lou Gambino, jersey number 44, scored an average of three touchdowns per game for the entire first part of the season, snapping the twenty-six-game winning streak of the Blue Hens of Delaware, until they met Duke, at which time Vic Turyn fumbled one play after a brilliant seventy-nine-yard gain the first play after kickoff and wound up losing 20-7, which was still a great moral victory for Maryland because everybody thought it would be another 50-0 win for Duke!

  If he keeps the subject alive, if he begs for more, then you’re allowed to dance back on stage for one short little encore. Don’t forget, though—you have a job to do in that interview. And unless you’re being interviewed for the post of mid-Atlantic football historian, you’re veering away from that job if you keep piling on long after your mission of getting him talking is accomplished.

  It’s a good idea always to leave some money unspent, some liquor undrunk, and some knowledge unbrandished!

  Up-talk takes fascinating forms in other cultures. During the four hundred years that the Dutch ruled Indonesia, they spoke to their Indonesian servants in Pasar Malay, the language of the marketplace. The servants, though, were obliged to answer in either Dutch or High Javanese. Today, in languages that have the usual two forms of address, formal and familiar, the, up-talker wouldn’t dare addons the Intimidator in anything but the formal, though the boss might well use the familiar, particularly if the employee were sufficiently beneath him in rank.

  A French worker would quite literally sooner shoot his boss with a pistol than address him with the familiar tu form rather than the formal vous. In Sweden they get so reverent of their superiors that they flip out of the second person altogether and use the third! That, coupled with their habit of addressing women by their last names and the professions of their husbands, can lead to lulus like “Would Mrs. Senior Engineer Johansson care for another piece of lightly salted reindeer meat?”

  America is one of the world’s rare democracies, not just politically but in our freedom to Approach the Throne. Approach it soon. Approach it often. Approach it prepared.

  Come armed with good conversational material. Postpone ~~ use of that material, or abandon it, if a better hook offers itself.

  If, knowing the Intimidator’s emotional commitment to football, you’ve worked out a foolproof ninety-second routine based on last Sunday’s NFL action, and if after sitting you down the Intimidator lets you know how upset he is over the Norfolk immigration official’s bungling of a would-be Soviet defector, swallow football and go with the Cold War.

  Otherwise, you’re the cub reporter whose first assignment was to cover the PTA meeting at the local schoolhouse. A few hours later the editor asked for his story.

  “There is no story,” the reporter said.

  “Why not?” the editor demanded.

  “Because there wasn’t any PTA meeting,” said the reporter.

  “Why not?” continued the editor.

  “Because,” explained the reporter, “the schoolhouse burned down!”

  Never permit a lull, even for a fraction of a second. That lull, to you, is like sudden slack to a high-wire acrobat. Be relevant. The most high-explosive, delightful anecdote in the world, hurled without reason or relevance into a conversation to brighten it, is not as effective as a pleasant little piece of patter that fits what’s already been said like a color-compatible square of quilting.

  Don’t yawn. Don’t cuss. Don’t tell dirty jokes. Don’t smoke. Even before rejection of the smoker reached riptide, it was considered suicide for the up-talker to light up without invitation or asking permission. (And it was outright surrender even if you asked. Asking if it’s all right to smoke is tantamount to declaring, “I find the intimidation hereabouts quite crippling. Do you mind if I set fire to my crutch?”)

  If you’re intimidated, say so. But say so not as one who’s intimidated, but as a connoisseur of intimidation commenting upon the rare vintage of intimidation being served.

  “I’m sure some seemingly cool people have occupied this chair before, but, I’ve got to tell you, it’s hard not being intimidated when you realize the opportunity that sitting in this chair represents!”

  Finally, bear in mind—repeat like a mantra—“He who needs the warmth must fan the flames.”

  In this sprawling democracy, it’s easy to forget how you rank vis-a-vis the one you’re dealing with. Some people refuse to treat Intimidators as Intimidators until the official referee’s ruling is handed down and they see they’re officially outranked. If you’re among the fortunate few capable of identifying emotional garbage and letting it slide down the disposal chute of the soul, then you might try releasing that attitude that says, “Are you sure this guy is one of the ones whose ring I have to kiss, because I’m damned if I’m going to kiss one unnecessarily,” and replacing it with the attitude that says, “How best can I fan the flame?”

  It’s easy to tell when you’re outranked in a job interview. Elsewhere, it’s a good idea to learn to read “insignia.”

  Shortly after victory, General Eisenhower was scheduled 1 to make an inspection tour of an American army base in northern France. The lieutenant in charge of welcoming the general came to the buck private guarding the gate and asked, “Has General Eisenhower arrived yet?”

  “No, Lieutenant,” snapped the private.

  A half hour or so later the lieutenant came around again. “Any sign of General Eisenhower yet?” Again, the answer was no.

  Another twenty minutes went by, and the exasperated lieutenant again approached the private at the gate and said, “Do you mean to tell me you still haven’t seen General Eisenhower?” The private assured the lieutenant he had not.

  Eventually a military limousine with a five-star flag flying from the fender pulled up to the gate of the post.

  “Halt,” shouted the private. “Who goes there?”

  The unmistakable Eisenhower smile illuminated the region through the open backseat window and the familiar voice said, “I’m General Dwight David Eisenhower, soldier.”

  “Are you General Eisenhower?” asked the incredulous private.

  “Yes, I am,” laughed Ike.

  “Oh, boy,” said the private, “are you going to catch hell from the lieutenant!”

  When the Intimidation Is Sexual

  Remember the theory of the golf swing: You don’t start hitting the ball right until you learn to pervert every stick-swinging instinct and practice until it feels natural.

  Nowhere is that more keenly^felt than in conversations you hope will end with your saying, “How about dinner?” and the other person saying, “I’d love to.”

  It’s as though God stepped back, admired His handiwork, and then decided to play a practical joke. All creatures would get their sexual-procreative-romantic rewards by simply obeying their instincts—except man! Man would have to keep getting rebuffed when he obeyed his instincts until he saw through the joke and learned how to reverse those instincts.

  The prevalent pattern is: Man sees woman, man likes woman, man sallies over to try to engineer woman’s acquaintance, man tries too hard, woman says “Pleased to meetcha” and wafts away, man cross-examines buddies and bartenders to try to figure out what he did wrong—and tries even harder next time.

  I’m sorry it took me so long to unpuzzle God’s practical joke, but not as sorry as I am grateful that I discovered the secret while there’s still time!

  The secret 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.

  Ask any ten attractive women why wealthy, powerful, brilliant, talented, impressive men who obviously want to make big talk with them so often walk away defeated, sent to the showers without having ga
ined those women’s interest, respect, attention, or even their correct telephone number.

  I’ve asked many more than ten such women. The verdict is in. It’s unassailable. Men can utilize it or ignore it. They just can’t change it.

  Those women spurn those men because they try too hard to make too much of an impression too quickly.

  “What a blowhard,” steamed one woman after the Big Man at the party spotted her, came broadside, brandished his importance at her, and then retreated in ill-concealed frustration toward friendlier harbors to lick his wounds.

  “He told me about his poverty-stricken childhood, his startling success, his yacht, his wealth, his power, his close ties to royalty and chiefs of state, how his employees hate him and fear him—and how okay that is with him—and how he hates to keep turning down the governor’s invitation to dinner but if a chick like me were to go with him, he’d accept.

  “He got all that across to me within one minute,” she said with the kind of contempt that borders on admiration. “And he wasn’t even talking especially fast!”

  Another Major Man will never learn why an attractive woman refused to go out with him—she chose a much less successful man—unless he reads it right here. All of us there that night thought that woman was lost to the rest of us for the evening, maybe forever, because of the fame and power of the man who decided to take a shot at her, and the intensity of his lunge. He barreled in on her like a heat-seeking missile and, with the subtlety of a stuffed moosehead, made sure she knew all the great things he could do for her if they became “friends.”

  Poor guy. He thought that was “making it.” The woman later said the toughest thing she’d ever done was cluck a polite retort before turning her back on him abruptly. “I had to grit my teeth,” she recalled. “I really wanted to pour my drink in his face and denounce him loudly enough for the guests touring the upstairs to hear. Did I perhaps look like someone who couldn’t do great things for herself?’1

  She wound up leaving with a man who gave her a poignant description of how especially welcome bank holidays are to someone in debt, how he takes comfort in the knowledge that none of the checks he’s written will bounce that day.

  There will always be women who melt when men of influence and wealth try to be friendly. One of the towering achievements of the Women’s Liberation movement has been to put those women in disfavor. Worthwhile women don’t like showoffs.

  The magic lies in concealing everything about yourself that might possibly impress the one who appeals to you—and then hope it all gets found out. The most impressed women I’ve ever met—the ones who need orthopedic help to get their toes uncurled—are the ones who come up to you and say, “See that man over there? I talked with him for twenty minutes and never even realized he was president and board chairman of the second-biggest fast food chain east of the Mississippi. He just seemed like a plain old person.”

  Men and women see many times more attractive women and men than they meet and talk to. That leads them to wonder, “What if I’d actually met that blonde in the elevator [that man three tennis courts away]? Might it not have been mutual?”

  That’s wasted wonderment. A much more useful question is, “Of all those attractive people I did meet whom I never saw again, how many might I have converted into friends if only I hadn’t been so dumb in the first sixty seconds of conversation?”

  “Innocent until proven guilty” is a magnificent feature of Anglo-Saxon law. Alas, the laws that govern human attractions are the opposite. You are guilty of being One of Them ‘‘”’until you prove yourself otherwise. If you do nothing but hang around smiling and babbling “safe” conversation, you will be branded as One of Them—one of the crowd, one of the herd, one of the pack, a bit player, an also-ran, a nerd, a schlemiel, a vacant lot, a silent H.

  Men and women, almost without exception, tell of the thrill of spotting an enthralling person across the well-known crowded room or the lonely beach—exchanging smiles, making initial contact, hunkering in eyeball-to-eyeball, feeling all the awakened internal engines of romance driving them on-ward—only to crash in disappointment when their potential new love opens his or her mouth and all the emptiness pours forth.

  Men and women both testify that the other person’s ability to start conversations—particularly valid, imaginative conversations—can compensate for deficits in dress, social standing, education, finances, and physical appearance itself!

  “It’s maddening,” said one of the more sought-after women in New York, “to spot a nice, rippling hunk across the room, lock eyes with him, come close, feel the chemistry, exchange names, hometowns, and occupations—and suddenly find him so boring that in less than one full minute he’s put your feet to sleep!”

  TV commercials never portray it, but many more women are shunned by men for inability to converse than for major breath breakdown and faulty deodorant. Vice versa, too, of course.

  The man who thought of putting the wrinkle in the hairpin became a millionaire. The overwhelming majority of the population have no wrinkles in their conversation. None. Ever. It would be worth a million to them if they could just add one. They never do. Their traffic is subject, verb, and object” ? unmodified by colorful adjectives and adverbs. And lots of cliches, intoned with the solemnity of original wisdom. You may have known teachers who deliberately seemed to say, “There shall be no joy in this classroom.” Likewise, some people seem to be telling the world, “There shall be no wrinkle of wit, originality, color, dash, or daring about my conversation. I’m straight.”

  You know the feeling of sometimes looking for reasons to like, other times for reasons to dislike. 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.

  The most interesting survey I’ve ever taken was asking attractive,women how much time a man has to make a good verbal impression before the silent gong goes off and he loses his chance. Some said fifteen seconds. Others said it was closer to a minute.

  That’s not much time for those who don’t understand there’s a test going on. It’s plenty of time, though, for those who know they’ve got to distinguish themselves from One of Them—and come to the test prepared.

  Who doesn’t know that miserable awkwardness that reaches out and strangles the opening instants of what we hope will turn out to be a relationship? Money won’t help. Muscles won’t help. Fame won’t help. Talent won’t help. Social position won’t help. Education won’t help. Having traveled won’t help.

  An earthquake might. An air raid might. A blackout might.

  The best help at that moment, though—and the least violent—is conversation!

  If you want that acquaintanceship to become a relationship, you “sponsor” the conversation.

  Again, the first step is the simple awareness that you can do something besides stand there with a forced smile and hope a nice conversation breaks out. You’re not a child who can do nothing but watch the rain clouds eliminate his day at the beach. You can take charge. You can affect things in that opening minute. You can do to that opening chill what a blowtorch does to a cobweb. You can become old friends at once by igniting a good conversation.

  Starting a conversation with someone you spot on the street, in a plane, train, or revolving door, or racing for a bus strikes many as impossible and, in fact, undesirable. It has a bad name: pickup. Sour grapes, I say. What kind of bigotry is it that suggests that those you’re officially introduced to are necessarily preferable to those you run across in your travels in between introductions? There are ways to take good honest shots at connecting in what we’ll call not pickups but unstructured encounters. Meanwhile, it’s hard enough to get things going when you’re officially introduced. Or when you’re both under the “umbrella of introduction” afforded by being guests at the same party, and therefore free to
step up, state your name, and start talking.

  “Ernest, meet Linda,” says the hostess. “Ernest is a commodities broker. Linda acts and paints.” With nothing but that spiderweb to swing on, the hostess leaves Ernest and Linda to build a life together, and flits onward to fertilize other blossoms.

  We’ll observe, then forget, the obvious facts that (a) Linda may dislike Ernest on sight so intensely that no conversation, however brilliant, will help, (b) Ernest feels that same way about Linda, (c) it’s mutual, or (d) they’re both so enraptured with each other at first glance that no conversation is necessary.

  Never mind!

  Athletes don’t use “form” only during Olympic competition. 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. Try it. You’ll discover a whole new kind of fun when what used to be forced and labored communication between disinterested parties suddenly becomes a conversational trapeze act. That’s when you can try new tricks, test new triggers. Like Ping-Pong, what began as a meaningless activity of convenience can lift and flavor a whole evening.

  Conversations, like paintings, need not do anything. You may never want anything or seek anything from the one you successfully involve in conversation. A good conversation enriches just because it happened, just because it was there. If you’re the “painter”—the architect—of that successful conversation, you’re allowed to be proud, for no other reason.

  Meanwhile, back to Ernest and Linda. There they are, left by the busy hostess on a desert island in the middle of a crowded party with nothing to eat except, “Ernest is a commodities broker and Linda acts and paints.”