Rob Gilroy: Network-shy
I’m not very good with people. I don’t mean in a Harold Shipman sort of way, more in a ‘be yourself and make small talk’ way. I don’t know what it is about social functions and the spotlight of someone’s gormless face that freezes my ability to operate in a manner that’s close to human. But freeze I do, and gormless they are.
I’ve spent a large percentage of my life on stage in front of strangers desperately trying to elicit a very specific reaction from them. You would think this gave me some sort of cheat code for cruising through awkward conversations with minimum fuss (Witty Comeback = A-Up-C-Down-B-B-Left-Z). This is far from the case.
A room of 40 people who would all rather eat their carvery than listen to me prattling on, is actually much easier than standing opposite ‘Gavin’, a friend of a friend, who sort of likes Coldplay but also works at a garden centre.
A large part of the problem is down to the fact that I know I have nothing to add to most conversations, but also that they know it too.
When you’re young you hear the phrase ‘if you have nothing nice to say then don’t say anything at all’, now if this is the case then most political conferences would consist of nothing more than garishly coloured placards and a buffet of dubious content. But the ‘say nothing’ mantra has actually started to become a rule I use. I tend to say nothing because it’s better (and often more entertaining) than voicing my opinions.
This is a concern that filtered into my stand-up at one point – I routinely assessed everything I wrote for intellectual relevance. It’s quite a crippling process; you can never really achieve any success because you’re constantly critiquing your own ability. In the end it becomes impossible to finish anything. It’s a bit like sitting on the toilet and panning for gold in your poo.
But I digress (another fear of mine; maybe I’ll digress once too often in a conversation and bring about the onset of a coma in my audience?) The main reason my social ineptitude holds me back is because I often find myself in a position where I need to network with people. Networking is like speed dating but neither party enjoy it or get anything out of the experience.
If chatting to ‘Gavin’ can cause my mouth to swell up and my brain to defecate any semblance of normality, then imagine what I’m like in a room full of influential people. I might as well operate purely as a hat stand, as that’s the extent of my relevance in any such situation.
It’s something I’m desperately trying to overcome but it’s difficult. How does forcing yourself to talk to people, even if you’d rather sit in the gents and stuff your face with canapés, make it any easier to hold a coherent and interesting conversation? It doesn’t. It’s the exact opposite. I clam up tighter than a bee’s anus, often going from dull mute to random weirdo.
Once, while talking to an important group of people, I took a swig of beer to avoid forming any words and found myself choking on the drink. I then proceeded to cover my mouth with my hand and spit as I gagged. It created a sort of hand-mouth sprinkler system, spraying the people nearby in a gentle rain of Peroni. It wasn’t my finest moment.
It comes back to the same problem again – relevance. If I’m not being relevant I should probably shut up and leave it to the people who can hold court without losing control of their bodily functions. But if I do that then I don’t make those vital ‘connections’, I don’t make ‘contacts’ and my networking has been about as much use as sitting in a wardrobe and claiming you’re king of the tie rack.
I have to change, not just for the sake of my sanity, but for my career. I need to think like I used to on stage. The reason I found stand-up easier than talking was because I knew it didn’t matter about honesty or relevance, it just mattered about being funny. I knew what target I had to hit and even if I didn’t reach it, the saving grace was I wouldn’t have to see those people again.
That’s how I should view networking – go into it with a plan to meet people and have a bit of a laugh but if I do end up making a tit of myself, or talking for forty minutes about the narrative arc in Count Duckula then who cares? I don’t have to see these people again. They weren’t going to hire me before, so my comments haven’t really changed the outcome in any way. It’s just about making an impression, what ever that is.
And if I’ve learned anything from Dr Shipman, it’s that it’s good to leave your mark.
