My First Networking Event.

It’s not that I don’t like meeting new people, I’m just very uncomfortable with it. I am terrible in introductory situations, I make bad jokes that end up making everyone feel awkward, my cheeks get rosey and my eyes always feel watery. I think it might be some sort of weird tick. Thus the reason I was very nervous about attending my very first Chicago business networking event at the Mid America club yesterday. It’s not like I’m socially challenged, I just find so many other people socially challenged that it’s usually more fun for me to just sit back and observe.

But at the suggestion of my manager, yesterday I had no choice. So I didn’t go to sleep with wet hair, I got up early and showered, put on my best black tights and white blouse and set out to network myself among Chicago’s finest…networkers. It was pretty much just as I expected. A room full of strangers (all professional strangers of course) sipping on gross coffee, clutching their mini plates of stale muffins and odd flavored bagels, attempting to find another loner to speak with. I mean network with. I definitely felt way too young to be in such a professional setting. Wasn’t it just last year I was in high school playing dress-up as a chef making Jicama salsa?

Not wanting to waste the $50 my company paid to send me to this elegant continental-hotelesk breakfast, I forced myself to jump in and make the most of it. So I began collecting business cards like they were Halloween candy, if I was going to make this work I had to turn it into a competition. Once I started thinking of the business cards like currency I began making my rounds like it was my job. Which I guess it basically is? When it was time to sit down and listen to people talk about shit I could care less about, I could barely contain my excitement with all of the money, errr cards, I had collected. I was counting them and shuffling them and fanning them out in front of me, and then I realized I was the only five year old in the room playing while everyone else was listening to the benefits of joining the Chicago Chamber of Commerce.

So I put my toys away and started to pay attention. And here is what I took away from the speakers: all professional working men need to invest in a great suit. Like a Ryan Gossling really great suit. There simply is no way around it. Like it or not, superficial or not, a suit says so much. And so many of the men yesterday were saying all of the wrong shit. Like "I used to be fat" or "I'm color blind" or "I used to fat and colorblind" or "I moonlight as a disco ball" or "I just get really hot" or "I'm homeless" or "I just really like rubber soles" and my favorite, "I just really like Dwight Shrute." No excuse for short sleeves. None.