Of course, any fool can start talking to someone. The essence of mingling is not starting talking to someone but stopping talking to someone so you can start with someone more interesting. The best way to do this is to introduce the person you’re talking to to someone equally dull. Dull people actually love other dull people because it takes the pressure of them to be interesting and amusing. Once they’ve shared the code words, ‘I hate mingling’, they’ll discover within seconds a shared interest in railways.
A core skill for mingling is being able to interrupt people. If you stand politely next to two people waiting for them to stop talking to each other, you’ll just look as if you’re some kind of UN observer. The trick is to remember that at least one of the two people talking to each other will be desperate to get away. You’ll know this is the case because a millisecond after you interrupt, one of them will shoot across the room in a desperate bid for freedom. Just make sure you follow the interesting one.
Professional minglers know that you can’t mingle and eat a cocktail sausage at the same time. That’s why if you look for the most amusing person in the room, it definitely won’t be the person who’s got a glass of wine in one hand and their face in a paper plate of nibbles they’re holding in the other hand.
If you’re stuck with someone who’s sapping your will to live, you can activate the ejector seat of any conversation which is a simple ‘Would you excuse me for a moment?’ You then move away as if you were going to do something vitally important. You can then just stand five yards away doing absolutely nothing, because the cast-iron rule with mingling is that when you’ve been demingled you can’t remingle slightly insulting, however politely it’s done. Saying to someone it was lovely to talk to them has the clear subtext that it’s going to be much lovelier talking to someone else.
How to mingle
uit: Never hit a jellyfish with a spade - Guy Browning
____
