JB4GDI’s Profile

This article first appeared in WPI's The Towers on September 5th, 2007 (without the picture).  It was written by Jon Adler and Jaime Barriga (me).

Have you ever been in one of those situations where you head to dinner at the food court with a friend (let's call them person Y), and they spot a friend of theirs who you've never met (person Z), and suddenly you (X) find yourself sitting with Y and Z?  To make things more awkward, as soon as Y and Z see each other they start talking for an hour and a half about how Bobby failed to deliver the Skunk Guitar to the Nebraskan Poetry Jam and how hysterical the whole ordeal was.  And it wasn't funny because you had to be there?  Remember how awesome that dinner was?!

I sure do, and after being in several of these "fun" scenarios over the course of my life (I always enjoy reminiscing about that fateful poetry-filled night with Z), I've discovered that a majority of us have, at some point in our lives, lost the art of introducing people to each other.  Unlike cross-stitching and ice sculpting, the art of introduction is an art form that takes more than a few minutes of time and effort to master.  However, once you do get the hang of it, you'll find that the skies are bluer, the grass is greener, and your facebook profile has more friends in it.  The art of introduction is actually more of a process so follow along closely or you'll fail the pop quiz at the end.

<b>Know where to perform an introduction</b>.  This is one of the most important parts of the introduction, but lucky for you there is only one golden rule you need to follow.  It is to make sure that you can hear yourself talk at the introduction location.  If you're planning on introducing your friend Tara Weismann, make sure the person at the other end can hear you.  Otherwise that other person may think you said "Terrorist Man" and even I can't think of a way in which that situation would end well (especially since I don't know any males named "Tara").

<b>Know how to start an introduction</b>.  First make sure the two introductees don't have their minds elsewhere.  I was once introduced to someone who was busy playing Halo with a group of friends, and I'll be darned if he even remembered I existed 5 minutes after the fact (which actually helped since I totally stole his Sega Genesis and he never called me on it*).  If you are positive that the two parties have their heads in the game, a nice thing to do would be to point out one thing that makes each introductee unique and interesting.  A good example would be something along the lines of "Hey Kyle.  I'd like to introduce you to Nathan, the lead guitarist for our school's jazz ensemble.  Nathan, this is Kyle.  He works as a trainer at the Planet Fitness down the road."  Simple.  In fact, you could probably use this introduction for any two people and probably be ok (keep the names and everything).  Next comes the trickier part.

<b>Know what to say after an introduction is made</b>.  This step is where master introducers are made.  Knowing what to say at this point is something that actually involves a bit of preparation and tact.  What you need is a good idea of the two introductees' interests and hobbies, and that can only be done by spending time with each of them in advance.  "If you fail to do this, you may crash and burn worse than my laptop when I tried to plug it in on my trip to Chile (220 volts is a dirty socialist voltage), but the introduction may still survive even if you don't know one of the parties that well.  What is important is the concept of give and take known as talking over people.  When you're making an introduction, you need to make absolutely sure that the two introductee's know that you are the most important person in the room.  Cut people off mid-sentence.  Bring up embarrassing moments about one of them.  Never miss an opportunity to tell the two of them about all your awesome acts and accomplishments when they're about to talk about theirs.  Making yourself look better than you really are is the ticket to connecting with people.  Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

<b>Know how to take the introduction exit</b>.  At the corner of "I'm Bored" lane and "Crap, this person is really creepy" terrace is the convenience store known as "Introduction Exit."  All good introductions need to come to an end at some point.  Thankfully, they're usually easy to see coming and relatively easy to perform.  A good sign that it's time to end an introduction is when an introductee states something along the lines of "uhh so," which is then followed up by exactly seven seconds of silence.  Since it's always important to leave on a high note, exclaiming "and that's when, oh look!!  Food!!" or paranoidly saying "oh no, they've found us" will work pretty well.  At least, as long as it involves you running away as fast as you possibly can.

Well that's it; bet it's simpler than it looks.  It is our sincere wish that you try to put into practice a thing or two from this article (and don't just grab it to clean up spilled iced tea like we did with the first draft).  Hopefully, you'll be introducing the both of us to all your cool friends in the near future!  Oh, and before we take our leave, here is the pop quiz we promised (sorry that we filled it in already).

http://users.wpi.edu/~jb4/PopQuiz.jpg

*Ok this is a dirty lie, though if you're interested, stealing is a great way to get yourself arrested and thrown in jail.  There is also, to the best of my knowledge, a special place in hell for people who steal other people's video game consoles.

Thursday, September 6, 2007