I really like the post
Jonathan Fields wrote on his “Awake at the wheel” blog, called “The Geek’s
Guide to Being Interesting.” If you have trouble with small talk and navigating
typical networking sessions, you’ll relate:
“It sounded so easy. Just learn the standard openers, the 10
new-person questions, then listen to the answers and keep asking questions that
demonstrate that you’ve listened and want to know more. I tried it. It took a
bit of practice. But, it worked. If you pretend to be interested by mimicking
the behavior of a genuinely interested person, people love you…
Only one problem…a solid 80% of the time, I didn’t WANT
to know more.
In fact, it was all I could do to keep my inner geek/hermit from
raising its head three words into a conversation and screaming, “NEXT!”
…it takes a boatload of energy to feign interest in the
name of being found interesting by people who, when it comes down to it, you
don’t want to share your damn cookies with anyway. It empties you out in the
name of being liked by people who, even if you’re successful in your quest to
be found interesting, will have fallen not for you, but for who you’ve conned
them into thinking you are.
Ya know what? Maybe, just maybe it’s time to (wo)man up and
learn that it’s okay for only 5% of the people to find you interesting. Because
life’s not about mass adoration, it’s about individual connection and we all
have a relatively limited capacity for that.”
Kind of a relief to think of it that way, isn't it?
