Can you circulate at parties? Or do you, like me, get buttonholed by somebody boring, hearing all the details of their job and the badminton achievements of their daughter, thinking the only way this conversation is going to end is if one of us dies?

Lesson One: Getting Started

Just be humorously frank. Identify your mingling target, and go up to them and say ‘are you in the mood for mingling?

Lesson Two:

Have done your pre-mingle swotting. People are going to grade you on your conversation over the canapes, and the worst you can get is a T for tedium. So make sure you’ve read the papers, looked through magazines and you know what’s hot and what’s not.

Lesson Three:

Now, the length of the mingle moment: 30 secs if it’s really bad. I mean, you’ve got to be polite. Just name, job, number of children, nice flower arrangement, terrible weather, bye.

Which brings us to the killer issue. Disentangling from the mingle. Bottom of the class are lines like ‘um I need another drink now. Or I really must go to the loo now.’

You’ve got to be humorous. You’ve got to say ‘the Gods of mingling are calling’. Or I’m getting the mingle tingle’

So there you go. A few basics in mingling that should see you through the Christmas party season. Although I think it’s something I have to practice myself. Was it something I said?

Video: Linda Kennedy

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