After a squirm-filled holiday dinner in Ottawa last year, Jenna Choleras vowed to never again be ill-prepared for a party. Sure, she was dressed to the nines in a strapless dress, a kicky cardigan and a hot pair of heels. But intellectually, the 23-year-old Haligonian was out of her element, surrounded by politicos whose musings about different parties and personalities excluded her from many conversations.
"I just kind of stayed a little bit quiet and nodded along and dropped whatever I knew every now and then," Choleras says. "I had no idea."
This season, however, she'll be ready to weigh in on Prime Minister Stephen Harper's latest pronouncements and offer her take on the season's bestsellers. Before hitting the town, the advertising account executive will be scanning headlines for general news bites and brushing up on pop culture.
"It makes me feel a little bit more secure, that I'll be able to get the conversation flowing," she says. "If I'm talking to someone interesting, I want them to think I'm equally interesting."
Call it Party Chatter Angst, the niggling fear that you won't be able to make intelligent social chitchat and are doomed to leave the party looking and feeling dumb. If you haven't got a clue who won this year's Giller Prize and are terrified that you'll be quizzed on it by your seatmate at a holiday soirée, you've got it. And the pressure isn't a figment of your imagination.
According to a new Harris/Decima survey on behalf of MSN.ca, 79 per cent of Canadians admit they judge people they first meet based on how smart they are. The survey, which polled 1,013 Canadians in October, also found that 20 per cent of them bone up on current events and popular culture before hitting the holiday party circuit.
In other words, knowing who won the Giller Prize (it was Linden MacIntyre for The Bishop's Man) isn't mere snob pretension, but a vital social tool that can make or break your night. On that note, it wouldn't hurt to also know that Precious and Nine are this year's leading Oscar contenders or to have flipped through Archie Brown's The Rise and Fall of Communism or Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner's Superfreakonomics.
Shirley Steinberg, a professor of media and culture at McGill University's Faculty of Education, says we can thank the Internet for the ramped-up intellectual expectations.
"Before, if you were invited to a party, you were thinking about what you're going to wear, how long you were going to be there or what you were going to drink or bring," she says. "Now you have that immediate response that you have to go and make yourself more knowledgeable."
There's nothing wrong with doing a little research to boost your social life, she notes. But "the mind can only handle so much quick Internet researching," she says, adding that looking up facts on the fly via your BlackBerry or iPhone comes with its risks.
Say you meet a physicist at a party and then duck into the bathroom to research the type of metal used on the Hubble telescope, for instance. You may lead him to think that your interest runs deeper than it does, Steinberg says.
"You're interested in looking better; you're not interested in becoming an expert on astrophysics," she says. "Is it inauthentic? Absolutely. But we live in an inauthentic society."
As long as you're genuinely interested in the person you're talking to, there's no risk of coming off vacuous, says Debra Fine, the Denver-based author of The Fine Art of Small Talk.
And arriving at the party with intellectual armour you hammered together in the days and weeks before the event can make you feel more at ease, which in turn draws others to you.
"If I feel comfortable with you, that takes us to the next level: It means I can do business with you. That's my social currency," Fine says. "It's not being able to spout statistics that I read in The Globe the other day. It's the ability to keep conversations going, a genuine interest so that we really get to know each other."
Communicating sincerely is exactly what Bernardo Carducci coaches shy people to do.
"When you're highly self-conscious, you tend to be highly self-critical," says the director of the Shyness Research Institute at Indiana University Southeast.
Shy people "don't respond because they feel they have nothing to say or they think what they have to say isn't very interesting or isn't very relevant."
That's when they should engage in what he calls "social reconnaissance," the pre-emptive tactic of simply preparing ahead of time.
"The idea is to strengthen … any kind of [knowledge]weakness you may have. What are the common new stories? What are things people are going to talk about?"
Conversely, there is a danger in preparing too much, in peppering fellow partygoers with too many accusatory "Did you knows?" and ensnarling them in raucous debates. "That doesn't contribute to any social vibe," says Carducci.
Nadine Cann, a 27-year-old account executive for the Canadian Professional Sales Association, says her work in publicity makes being up to speed on pretty much everything essential, but the desire to be in the loop also applies to her social life. In the name of being knowledgeable, she is active on Twitter, voraciously trolls culture blogs and news websites and packs a list of conversation points before heading out to a bash.
"I find that, even socially, things [from the news]will come up, like how Rihanna just spoke out about her abusive relationship on Good Morning America," she said last week. Sure, it's not The Rise and Fall of Communism, but it was pertinent at the time. And there's an undeniable rush when you know you've impressed strangers with your knowledge high and low, premeditated or not.
"It's beneficial just to have that icebreaker," Cann says. "You never know where that conversation is going to lead."
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Tips for angst-free socializing
Doomed to be that boring wallflower at the party, picking at the shrimp ring and downing too much punch? Not this year. "The worst time to think of something to talk about is when there's nothing to talk about," says Debra Fine, author of The Fine Art of Small Talk. Arm yourself with these knowledge-gathering tips and you'll never be at a loss for words:
Bookmark at least three reliable news sources on your BlackBerry or iPhone. Scan the headlines or, to be better prepared, actually read the stories. Checking out the news on your home computer or laptop earlier in the day would also suffice.
The New York Times bestseller list? Your new best friend. Peruse the list a day or two before your bash so you can gush about how you hope Santa slides the new Malcolm Gladwell tome under your tree.
In the weeks prior to a do, find out what movies are getting the hottest buzz and check them out. Crafting a tiny unpretentious review of them couldn't hurt.
Remember that it's okay to get only the gist of a few news stories or cultural high points. No one expects you to be an expert on Afghani elections or Michael Ignatieff's poll numbers. Make the interaction a chance for other partygoers to educate you (we all know how people love to boast about their smarts).
Sarah Boesveld