Researchers say that friends can make us happier, more satisfied and even better workers. Studies also show that friends can help marriages survive and even extend our lives. But do old friends still make the best of friends? Sally Horchow and her father Roger Horchow, authors of the new book “The Art of Friendship: 70 Simple Rules for Making Meaningful Connections,” visited “Weekend Today” to discuss the rules of friendship. Here's an excerpt:
#7 Rule— Eavesdrop (Politely, of Course)
For many months, Sally anonymously shared a treatment room at the Face Place salon with Candace, whom she often over-heard talking with her facialist. One day, she couldn’t resist piping in. Candace miraculously understood Sally’s muffled comment from underneath her mask, agreed, and laughed from underneath hers. Soon they struck up a friendship out-side of the Face Place. We don’t recommend that you strain your neck while angling to get into the best eavesdropping position. We do, however, want you to pay close attention to the subtle tidbits of information
people drop in casual conversation. There, we said it: we advocate eavesdropping (it’s certainly better than name-dropping!) Why? It’s a highly effective, quick way to get a “behind-the-scenes” sense of someone’s personality and find a conversation starter.
You must exhibit extreme finesse, however, while eaves-dropping. If you can smell someone’s perfume/cologne and make out the pores on their face, you are standing too close! Likewise, if you happen to eavesdrop on a highly personal conversation, step back and give these people their space. You would want the same respect for your privacy. Listen to the conversation around you and silently practice what you might say to the speakers.
#8 Rule— Be VulnerableHow often have you met someone who wouldn’t let down his or her guard? The conversation stalls or becomes painfully awkward, punctuated with long, empty pauses and miserable attempts to resuscitate the connection: “It sure did rain a lot today, didn’t it?” Here’s a tip: showing your vulnerability will eventually break the ice, giving the most frigid conversationalist reason to warm to you and, in time, reveal his or her guarded personality. A self-deprecating or revealing comment about yourself helps others to let their guard down—after all, you, not they, are in the spotlight. You might jokingly admit, “I’m so bad with names, I can hardly remember my own. Do you have a method for remembering them?” or come clean with, “This is my first time at this class, and I’m a little nervous.” By admitting you don’t know everything, you give others an opportunity to show-case their knowledge, which is guaranteed to make even the most socially guarded talkative. And you just might learn something new. With luck, you’ll also gain a new friend. Not bad for a few minutes’ worth of showing your belly. At the very least, it’s better than talking about the rain.
Come up with a couple of slightly self-effacing remarks and, the next time a conversation stalls, use them.
Top Five Conversations 1. Compliments: Everyone loves getting them. The key is to not be overly personal—it is fine to admire an item that a person is carrying or wearing, but not to comment on someone’s looks or personality. For example, “I have been admiring your handbag. Where is it from?” or “What a great pair of sneakers.”
2. Opinion Soliciting: People enjoy giving their opinions. Current events provide many openings. For example, “What do you think about the outcome of today’s trial?”
3. Information Request: Who doesn’t like to feel helpful? “What is a good local restaurant?” or “Can you suggest the best way to get to _______?”
4. Conversation Joining: This works best at a social gathering. Pick up on something the person has been saying or doing. For example, “I see you are drinking the specialty cocktail. Is it sweet?” or “I happened to hear you comment on the latest Star Wars movie, and I totally agree.”
5. Provocation: This option requires a certain finesse to be amusing but not off-putting— you want to insight conversation not annoyance! For example, “Of the Seven Deadly Sins, which one do you think is least sinful?”
The Piano Bar
In 1979, I read a new book by A. Scott Berg on Max Perkins. Barely a week after finishing the book, I went to the University of Colorado at Boulder, where I had been in visited to participate in the Council on World Affairs, an organization founded by sociologist Howard Hickman in the late 1940s to stimulate intelligent conversation on important contemporary issues. Every year he gathered about fifty guests from a wide variety of disciplines for a week of panel discussions. That April, Daniel Ellsberg was the headliner, and he was joined by other luminaries, such as Lukas Foss, pianist and conductor; Pepper Schwartz, sociologist; Roger Ebert, film critic; Peter Davison, poet and director of the Atlantic Monthly press; Frankie Hewitt, director of Ford’s Theatre; and Jack Nessel, editor of Psychology Today. My contribution would be to bring a retailers perspective to the conference, and to talk about mail order-marketing, which was rather new at the time.
Convinced I wouldn’t know anyone there, I dreaded social awkwardness I was sure I would feel at the welcome cocktail party. When I arrived, I noticed a piano in the corner of the room at which a young man was playing “Blah Blah Blah,” and obscure Gershwin song. Being a Gershwin fan, I was familiar with the tune and intrigued that this piano player in Colorado- so far from the cabaret circuit- knew it, too. I became even more intrigued when the young man, who I had thought was the hired entertainment for the evening, got up from the piano and started to mingle with the guests. I approached him and asked him about the Gershwin song. After a few minutes of conversation on the topic, he introduced himself, saying, “I’m Scott Berg.”
I gushed like a star struck groupie, telling him how great I thought his book was. It turned out that he was a huge fan of my mail-order catalog, the Horchow Collection. After our mutual fawning subsided, we resumed talking about our interest in Gershwin. It turned out that Scott had been using the piano as a retreat from conversation, a technique I sometimes resort to as well, so it was wonderful to have connected with each other on that level and so many others. For the rest of the week, we would find each other during lunch breaks and continue our conversation.
We have now been friends for almost 30 years- all because of a random meeting at what I had thought might be a boring conference. It ended up being the opposite—such a wonderful retreat from my everyday activity that I returned for three subsequent years and met many interesting people in fields I’d never before had contact with. If I had been more guarded—if I hadn’t gone over to speak with the “piano player,” or if I’d restrained myself from enthusing about his book—our meeting might have been just another “nice-to-meet-you” encounter. But because my antennae were up and I let my guard down, even at the risk of looking a bit foolish, my “Blah Blah Blah” led to a decades-long friendship that has been anything but blah!
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Excerpted from “The Art of Friendship: 70 Simple Rules for Making Meaningful Connections,” by Roger Horchow and Sally Horchow. Copyright 2006, Roger Horchow and Sally Horchow. All rights reserved. Published by St. Martin's Press. No part of this excerpt can be used without permission of the publisher.