Ask Miss Mingle: “The Human Sacrifice”

Posted on December 15, 2015

My friend Joelle recently had a harrowing cocktail party experience. She was cornered by one of life’s most dangerous predators — the Crashing Bore. Obsessed with his family’s genealogy, he just wouldn’t stop pontificating about his great-great-grandmother no matter how many times Joelle tried to change the subject. (Apparently he was descended from a very old family of Boston blue-blooded Bores.) After fifteen minutes, she tried a common-variety escape tactic: She said she needed to go get a drink. This proved ineffective, as the Bore followed her to refill his own glass. After another 20 minutes, she gave up and left the party.

What Joelle really needed was one of the most popular techniques from my book The Art of Mingling, a maneuver called the Human Sacrifice. Miss Mingle wishes to pass on this time-honored technique to her blog readers, so they might avoid suffering a similar fate during holiday parties. The Human Sacrifice is a particularly clever ploy because — when executed well — it poses as a social grace. Here’s how it’s done:

Step One) Surreptitiously look around you and locate someone you either know or have just met. (Don’t worry, if the person you are with is a bona fide Bore, he won’t notice your eyes wandering a bit.) Proximity is important; you are going to have to be able to reach out and shanghai this third person.

Step Two) While nodding enthusiastically to what the Bore is saying, pull this new person into your twosome. Immediately you will feel a shift, a loosening of the Bore’s hold on you.

Step Three) Introduce the sacrificial lamb to the Bore in a way that implies you are just being a good mingler by introducing two people who will probably have a lot in common.

Step Four) As soon as their eyes meet, leave immediately; you must fade out of the conversation within twenty seconds or this substitution will not work. A pleasant “Excuse me” will also serve as an alternative to a silent fade-out.

The Human Sacrifice may sound mean to some people, but I assure you it is perfectly acceptable party protocol. You can’t be considered rude to the Bore since you have procured a new conversational partner for him before leaving. And the person you just used as the sacrifice can just as easily find his own way out, if he wants to. Remember: All’s fair in love and mingling. (Tweet me @Miss_Mingle or email me at Jeanne@Jeannemartinet.com with your social dilemmas.)