negotiation is the name of the game: part i

with all the world events; common wealth games, children and social awkwardness - seeing people you really would rather not see, negotiation techniques have become a rather hot topic in the grove

there is a unique kind of dread of bumping into someone who you either don’t want to talk to, or, someone who you don’t mind, but don’t know well enough to carry off more than a “hello, how do you do” level of conversation

as the strained silence becomes more and more obvious, the conversation derails to the extent you wish you never left the house, or had perhaps gone ahead with poking your eye out with that pencil

ideally, ignoring each other’s presence should have been your first option, however, that opportunity has clearly passed you by. so here are 2 avenues for you to consider:

“how is the family?” this is a genius idea (not only because J&T came up with it) as the family is a massive brush stroke. it illustrates you care, while not having to go into the specifics (and your memory bank) of trying to figure out if they had a brother/ sister/ mother/ married/ single

second, is your way out…. “i need to pee” (again, a marvellous idea). please don’t refer to it as number one or number two (this level of detail will make your get out of jail card lose its credibility) and this will take you back to that awkward position that you found yourself in at the beginning