Chapter 14
USING AN INTROVERT’S TRAITS TO TURN SOCIAL EVENTS INTO YOUR HOME FIELD
WHEN I SETTLED on this chapter title, I could not help but laugh out loud. To put it a little more bluntly, I doubt if there’s any way for introverts to feel at home in any social event. This probably seems nearly as impossible as a Yankees fan and a Red Sox fan getting together. However, what about introverts who need to work primarily with social-networking gigs or want to make this type of work their livelihood? There are still things we can do!
The first time I attended the New Year’s Tea Party event held by a high-level government authority, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I tried to get the attendance list beforehand, because the event would be filled with a whole bunch of people I didn’t know. Not only was I not able to get my hands on that list, but they wouldn’t even respond to my request! I reminded myself that I’d been in my professional field for almost ten years. There were bound to be several people I knew at the event. I talked myself into thinking that attending this function would be no different than just sitting down and watching a show. I tried to convince myself that there wouldn’t be anything awkward about it. But when I walked into the event hall, I discovered that I had been too optimistic—not only did I not recognize anyone immediately, but there wasn’t a single seat in the entire place! Everyone was wearing formal attire, and they were all chatting in circles. As soon as I walked in through the doors, I panicked and only saw a sea of dark hair. The waves of people’s laughter and idle chatter rushed at me like an overwhelming tsunami of sound.
If it weren’t for the organizer’s division chief, who came to escort me into the hall, I would have beat a hasty retreat. By the time I got there, everybody else had already formed groups and they were all chatting away. The only company I had was my lonesome shadow, awkwardly standing in the middle of this opulent banquet hall. By some miracle, I received a phone call at just that moment, and it gave me something to do for the first thirty minutes of the event. After the phone call ended, when I went back to the strange, seemingly never-ending event, the thought, “What on earth am I doing here?” seeped through my mind at least fifty times. “From this day forward, I’m never going to attend anything else like this unless someone puts a gun to my head!”
The following night, another unfamiliar event was taking place—the Girls in Tech 40 Under 40 awards ceremony, and I was a winner. With the previous day’s experience in mind, and because I was not someone with a tech background, I kept hesitating before I headed out the door to the event, tearing my hair out about whether I should exposed myself to another occasion totally filled with strangers and whether I even deserved the honor I was expected to receive there. In the end, I braced myself and put on a nice dress and makeup. This wasn’t due to any shred of bravery on my part; it was because I had already told the event host that I’d be there and I just didn’t want to break my promise.
Although these two events were both unfamiliar, my experience with the second event was poles apart from the first; I made many new friends from those in attendance. In addition, I learned a lot of new things about tech that I hadn’t known before and even got the chance to build up new business opportunities! After I had returned home, my feelings about the entire thing had changed completely—I was still ecstatic.
Only one day passed between these two functions. The event I thought I had more control over took forever to end, and the one that I didn’t have any background knowledge of went by almost eerily smoothly. This experience precisely showcases my decades of struggle with social engagements as an introvert.
As I reflected on my experiences, I realized that I learned several great lessons that can serve as the principles for introverts in any social event.
SELECTIVELY PICKING YOUR BATTLES
Energy is an introvert’s most important asset. Before setting off to attend any social functions or engagements, make sure you know exactly why you need to attend. Don’t get me wrong, being selective doesn’t mean “over-cautiously picky.” There are events that we need to go to even if we don’t want to, and, in these cases, we still need to think positively and take the challenge so that we can gradually expand our comfort zone.
In my earlier-described experience, it was an honor to be invited to the New Year’s Tea Party event, and if I hadn’t gone, it would’ve been an embarrassment for me. I went to the Girls in Tech awards ceremony because I was to receive an award and it had been an honor to be invited. I thought that if I didn’t attend, it would also be an embarrassment for me. Moreover, my goal that year was to help/empower women to do anything they set their minds to. I wanted to learn how I could contribute to that goal. The compulsion to go was the same, but the inner driving force for me to get out and go to these events was different, and the effects varied tremendously. By selecting the social events you will attend based on how you feel about them in the moment, you can prioritize the ones that motivate you more, and by doing so, you’re off to a good start for thriving in the event.
PREPARING WELL
The type of situation you are preparing for will also influence your decisions on how to prepare. For example, the main reason for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ tea party was to allow attendees to talk freely with each other; that was why the planners didn’t schedule a lot of programs or provide any seating. Similarly, the Girls in Tech awards ceremony’s speaking arrangements were fleshed out really well, and the planners created a feeling of community sharing and engagement.
For introverts, listening to speeches is one of the best ways to not burn through energy at an event. To prepare for a specific event, before it kicks off, see if you can understand the flow of the event or the event’s seating configurations, or try arriving early to familiarize yourself with the venue. If there’s a relatively relaxed event flow, I recommend asking the organizers whether you can have a list of attendees, or ask whether other people you know are going to be there. By knowing that there will be someone there that you know will help, you create an anchor for yourself.
SITTING UP FRONT, GETTING ON STAGE
At the Girls in Tech awards ceremony, I was an award recipient, so my seat was already chosen for me well in advance. Even though I had to get up on stage and give a short acceptance speech (which I was unaware of prior to the event), having a chance to get on stage was actually advantageous for me because it saved me from having to introduce myself to and impress the strangers in the room. This may not sound very intuitive, but the more introverted you are, the closer to the stage (or person in charge, sponsor, and so on) you should sit. Similarly, the more introverted you are, the more you should go up on stage and give a speech. If you sit toward the front, you can easily be seen by the speaker, and if you get up on stage and talk, you can avoid having to do one-on-one introductions and having to make awkward ice-breakers.
For the two minutes that I was up on the stage, my speech went like this:
I’d like to say thank you to the organizer of the event. I actually don’t know why I’m a recipient of the Girls in Tech awards, I’m not even in tech! [The audience began to laugh.] Before I left my home today, I was on pins and needles about whether I should come here. I was talking with one of my American male friends who pinged me. He asked me, “Do you have a cell phone?” “Yeah,” I replied, “What about it?” “Then you’re in tech!” he replied. (cue a chorus of laughter)
I thought, women should really have this kind of attitude. We don’t need to be so sweet and polite, or too resistant to becoming the focal point of anything, and so I came. I work for Give2Asia. In the past, we’ve helped many remote villages in Taiwan as well as promoted science education for students. In the future, we hope to help even more Taiwanese, but especially women, obtain an education in tech. Thank you for this honor.
Giving this short speech worked to my advantage; by the time the mingling session began, everyone knew I was the woman who didn’t have a background in tech. Judging by the efficiency, it’s extremely worthwhile to use that two-minute self-introduction up on stage to avoid dozens of ice-breakers down in the crowd during the meet and greet.
Now let me explain how to smoothly pilot your way through social occasions using the ways of the introvert.
STEPPING BOLDLY INTO SOCIAL FUNCTIONS
I once participated in an online workshop held by entrepreneurial consultant, writer, and marketing company founder Ilise Benun, called “Don’t Get Pushed Around: An Introvert’s Guide to Getting What You Need at Work.” At the time, I became aware of an attractive guy in the studio with Benun—his eyes were clear, the way he spoke was quiet, and he exuded a kind of noble but slightly subdued aura. He was exactly the kind of character that girls would fall head over heels for in romcom movies. The moment I saw him, I thought, “What’s this person doing taking this class? This guy doesn’t look like he needs any sort of guidance on how to fit into the workplace!” But I was wrong; it turns out that, in the first class, this guy stated that if he runs into a complete stranger or needs to talk about something he’s not familiar with, he loses all his confidence and fears saying the wrong thing. He worries that others will think he’s an impostor or not good enough for the job.
His description sounds very familiar; social venues are scary places for introverts. They’re like an inescapable reality show where you’ve got to wholeheartedly throw yourself into the mix. When you’ve got a social engagement, you’ll spend all your time for a week prior to the event freaking out about it, getting all tangled up, and debating back and forth with yourself about whether you can get yourself out of going. After this long struggle, you will finally fight your way to the venue and arrive at the event. The three hours at the event will suddenly feel like thirty days. You will pretend to be relaxed and poised with a penchant for smiling. You will muster all your strength and energy to try to present yourself as humorous, you’ll try to give off an active aura up until you leave the venue and finally burn up all your energy; then all you’ll want to do is go back to your home or hotel and bury your face in a pillow. You doubt the intelligence of whoever decided to come up with this idea of networking, and you also hedge a bet on how many days are left until you have to attend another social function for work, family, or random reasons you don’t even know of yet.
In order to blend into society, we have to make some effort. In addition to practicing social cues at home or forcing ourselves to participate in activities or social functions, we go online and look up articles from content farms with titles like “The Art of Three-Minute Networking” or “10 Tips for Easily Building Up Your Connections”; our fingers hover over the keyboard full of hope for a solution to our problems, but after just a few minutes, often, we sadly close our internet browser. There’s a Chinese proverb that says “Breaking one’s arm three times can make one a great surgeon.” Even though I can’t call myself a doctor, I’ve had many setbacks, and I’ve gradually come to the conclusion that this saying is pretty useless for introverts. How you manage different people and scenarios with the right words for each situation has nothing to do with reading articles, or perfectly reciting a couple of guidelines or principles from memory. I know all the guidelines; I even bear them in mind: I’d like to look the person with whom I’m conversing directly in the eye, I’d like to wear a smile on my face, and I’d love to employ a strong handshake to leave a good impression, but my actual problem is that I just don’t have the ability to execute these skills during a conversation! Moreover, regardless of how relaxed the conversation is apt to be, I have to steel myself and practice continuously.
In recent years, I’ve given speeches for various occasions, from entrepreneurs’ small groups with about a dozen people to massive events with several hundred people; the greatest challenge for me isn’t getting up on stage for a speech, but how to interact with people before getting up on stage and after I’ve left it. This is especially the case when I’m holding onto some internal hopes. For example, perhaps I am hoping I can get some people to donate, that I can continue to work on a project or an activity with an important client, and so on, but I often feel embarrassed to ask; I can’t do anything but twist up a piece of my dress fabric between my fingers and give a meek smile.
After I built up a bunch of scars from continually putting myself in such circumstances, gradually people I met for the first time at the events started using descriptions such as “lively, energetic introvert, quick-witted” or other improbable words to describe me. If you’re also an introvert, I can share a practical way for making social functions your home front, or at least something that you don’t have to struggle with.