Of course, sometimes you cannot change the party. Not often, but sometimes you will discover that not even you—with your charm and the Rick James method of intelligent small talk—can make an event as special as you are. But never forget, you owe it to the person you want to become to make the most of every opportunity, even the disappointing ones.
If, for example, you endure a three-hour bus ride to attend a barbecue because you heard the grill master was going to be Warren Buffett and discover that Warren Buffett is indeed flipping the burgers but is not that Warren Buffett, don’t waste time sulking or chastising yourself. Find out what this Warren Buffett can do for you. Who knows—he might own a shitload of stock in Berkshire Hathaway, or perhaps he’s Jimmy “Margaritaville” Buffett’s cousin.
Put simply, you won’t catch fish if you don’t go fishing.
Dinner Parties
There are two types of dinner parties: 1) those where you get to decide where you sit—buffets—and 2) those where your host or hostess tells you where to sit, i.e., the seated dinner.
Given that at your average dinner party you will spend twice as long sitting and eating as you do standing and drinking, who you sit next to will to a large degree determine whether the evening is a success or a failure.
Because the tactics and strategies open to you are vastly different at a buffet versus at a seated dinner, it is of utmost importance that you ascertain as soon as possible after arriving whether the dinner is seated or not.
After you have greeted your hosts, presented them with a jelly jar of what by now is your legendary faux-fruit compote, told them they look fantastic, thanked them for inviting you, and complimented them on their beautiful home/apartment/child, immediately slip into the dining room, out onto the terrace, into the garden, or wherever the dinner’s going to be served. If you see plates stacked on the table rather than places set, you’ll know it’s a buffet—or the help is very sloppy.
If it is indeed a buffet, you are master or mistress of your own fate in regard to seating. Return to the room where the predinner cocktails are being served and survey the crowd for the most advantageous dinner partner. Calculate the number of guests who are in fact Big Fish, and check for the presence of Swans/Turtles. Remember, Turtles will be harder to spot. Chances are your hosts have thrown this buffet so they can eat their dinner nestled between the biggest of the Big Fish and the Swan.
Since the odds are both your hosts and the biggest of the Big Fish want to sleep with the Swan, either in reality or at the very least in their dreams, the best way for you to turn their threesome into a foursome with you squeezed between them is to employ that age-old technique we call Pimping the Swan.
We are not suggesting you do anything as crass as middle-manning a sexual liaison; simply flatter the Big Fish and/or your host/hostess in a way that will let the Swan know it’s worth his/her while being nice to the Big Fish. Because Swans, being gorgeous/sexy, do not have to social climb, i.e., work for their invites, Swans are often startlingly uninformed about who their host/hostess is and/or does and more important, what he/she is in a position to do for a Swan. You are merely providing a public service announcement. Casually mention to the Swan that the Big Fish is freshly divorced and/or has a beach house next door to Calvin Klein. Nonchalantly let it be known your host/hostess has the last word on who will be the next Swan featured in the advertisements for Chanel, Dior, Pep Boys, or the local Dairy Queen—you get the idea.
Remember that the biggest fish for you might not be the one with the most muscle. For example, if you’re a struggling novelist, an editor at a publishing house will be far more helpful to you than the CEO of Bank of America—unless the CEO of Bank of America is so smitten with you over dinner, he/she buys a publishing house and orders it to purchase your book. Which will only happen if, after the dinner party, you have fabulous sex with him/her again and again and again. In short, it’s often more advantageous for the social climber who’s just starting out to go for the smaller Big Fish who commands the pond you need to conquer before you can proceed to deeper waters.
Word of caution: Do not immediately attach yourself to the Big Fish you desire too early in the evening: You are a climber, not a case of the crabs.
The one exception to this rule applies to those whose personality type fell into the Velcro-Climber category—the climber who stays so tightly glued to the hip of the Big Fish and appears so deaf, dumb, and blind to his/her obvious efforts to ditch him that the Big Fish, out of sheer exhaustion, gives up and accepts him as a bosom buddy. This is not a method we recommend for the sensitive social climber.
Timing is everything. Unless you are a Velcro-Climber, wait until the tail end of the cocktail hour before latching on to the person you want to sit next to at a buffet. Since Big Fish love to talk about themselves, and you have googled them in the powder room, as you line up for plates and food, ask the Big Fish a question that will require an answer that will allow the Big Fish to brag about at least two of the reasons he or she is so great. For example: “I hear you’re both a noted big-game hunter and on the board of PETA.”
Time it right, and by the time you both get to the end of the buffet line, the Big Fish will insist on your sitting next to them so they can finish regaling you with how fantastic they are.
Know that you undoubtedly will not be the only social climber on the guest list. If you discover that the Big Fish who can change your life is already being monopolized by some other Mountaineer, it’s best to watch and wait. Do not try to break into their conversation or, worse, show your hand by interrupting to ask the Big Fish where they are going to sit and attempt to save a place next to them by placing your jacket/purse/sweater/manbag on a chair or sofa. Why? Because while you’re busy saving seats, the competition will get ahead of you in the buffet line with the Big Fish and when you get back with your dinner, they will have tossed your stuff behind the sofa and stolen your seats.
The best method to get the seat you want and deserve at a buffet dinner is to employ a technique we call the Gracious Hover. When your host/hostess announces dinner is being served, hover in the dining room where the plates and napkins have been put out. Let the non-Keepers, the less-than-delectable potential dinner partners, go ahead of you, handing each one of them a plate. Never miss an opportunity to look as if you have better manners than you actually do.
When the Big Fish you’re after gets in line with the social climber who has been monopolizing him or her, carefully step forward, three plates in hand. Offer the first to the Big Fish. Then, deftly slip into line between the Big Fish and the competition, handing the third plate to the rival you just cut off, making it seem as if you are simply trying to be polite. With your back to the climber behind you, it’ll be easy for you to exclude him or her from the conversation as you make small talk with the Big Fish about the entrées offered. If you see the Big Fish ask for gluten-free bread, confess that you, too, swing gluten-free. Vegan? Pescatarian? Strictly kosher? What a coincidence, you as well. By the time you get to the end of the line, the Big Fish will be asking you to help him or her ditch the sycophant who’s been stalking him or her throughout the cocktail hour.
Of course, if after greeting your host/hostess you duck into the dining room/terrace/garden/wherever and discover a set table with place cards bearing names, none of the above jockeying for position will help you improve your position in the world. Unless, of course, you are a celebrity. Barbara Walters, for example, is said to be notorious for surreptitiously improving her placement, and at one event, Ms. Walters had the admirable nerve to switch the place card of the guest of honor with her own so she could have the honor of sitting next to Hillary Clinton.
Seated dinners pose a challenge to even the most experienced social climber. Particularly if he or she is not seated next to a Big Fish and/or a Swan. But if a climber stays calm and can improvise, the worst seat in the house can become the catbird seat.
If you don’t recognize the names of those seated on either s
ide of you, quickly cyberstalk them. If you’re a newbie to the dinner party circuit, do not be surprised if the Internet reveals them to be subsomebodies. As a fledgling climber, you are filler. The best you can realistically hope for is that one of the two nobodies who are going to bookend your evening are companions, life partners, significant others, or spouses of a Big Fish, rather than your host or hostess’s yoga instructor, personal trainer, or acupuncturist.
You might wonder, why not just ask your host or hostess if the dinner is seated and who you are going to be seated next to when you first arrive? Because that would reveal that you cared about such things. Which is tantamount to admitting you are a social climber. Which, as we established at the start of the book, is the last thing a clever social climber wants to be known as. Hard as it might be to stifle your indignation over subzero seating, fight the urge to openly ask your host or hostess to change your placement. Requesting a different seat at the table, particularly if you ask to be moved to a seat next to a somebody, will show your hand.
If you are desperate, seated between a pair of major Wild Boars, or next to an octogenarian who has forgotten how to swallow his own saliva, the only way to request a seat change that won’t put you at a tactical disadvantage for the rest of the evening is to take your host or hostess aside, smolder, and then whisper in their ear, “I was hoping I’d get to sit next to you.”
Of course, this move is not without risk. Your host or hostess may interpret your plea as a request for more than you want or is in your best interest to deliver. If you both do in fact have a mutual unsatiated desire to be closer, this is all fine and good. However, if you aren’t prepared to follow up such a flirtatious opening move, you could gain a reputation for being a tease.
Though many Big Fish like a joke, there are two subjects they do not enjoy being teased about: sex and money.
If you discover you’ve been placed at the ass end of a dinner table, or have been seated at the obviously less desirable table for B guests, or even worse, discarded to a wobbly card table hurriedly set up in the neighboring room with your host or hostess’s no-neck monster relatives, do not complain. In fact, make a point of being thrilled by the seat that has been given you.
EMPOWERING THOUGHT #17
Where your host or hostess places you at a seated dinner party reveals just how little they think of you and, as such, it is the only honest barometer a climber has of his or her current status.
If your host or hostess has made a public pronouncement of your lowly status by seating you in Siberia, there’s only one way to rectify it. Return to the room where the cocktails are being served and your host is undoubtedly chatting up the biggest of Big Fish. Casually but deliberately mention that you almost had to miss the dinner you now wish you hadn’t said yes to. When they ask why, say that you’ve just taken an unexpected forty-eight-hour business trip to Dubai to meet with new investors or were in LA talking with Lena Dunham and Steven Spielberg about the film rights to the novel you’re writing, or you were stuck in the South of France inspecting the villa your grandmother just left you . . . in other words, make something up that can’t be proven untrue, that makes you seem so fabulous your host and the Big Fish will wish they were slated to sit next to you.
If, after you have tooted your own horn, the host tries to switch your seat, do not, repeat, do not! give them the satisfaction. Announce that there is nothing you love more than to have dinner with “new” people. Take your place proudly among the dregs of the party and proceed to give the impression to one and all that you are having the time of your life. Laugh at jokes that aren’t funny, regale the dullards on your left and right with your best stories about childhood adventures you never had with recently deceased celebrities you never met. Not only will the host who snubbed you worry they might have misjudged you, even better they will also worry that they might have offended you, which means you have succeeded in “flipping it.”
Yes, you were dealt a bad hand with your placement, but if you play your cards right, by the end of the evening you will have reversed the power dynamic and they will be sucking up to you.
The Dinner Dance
The dinner dance consists of a well-lubricated cocktail hour designed to “loosen up” the guests for a rumba, a dinner with enough wine to make said guests think they actually do do a great rumba, followed by a dance where it readily becomes apparent that not just WASPs but all rich people are rhythmically challenged. Tellingly, the dinner dance is one of the few lasting contributions WASP culture has made to the modern world.
Because of the expense involved in treating seventy-five or more people to drinks, dinner, a parquet dance floor, and a live band or a celebrity DJ, you can be sure that whoever is throwing the bash is a bona fide Big Fish. Unless, of course, the Big Fish is throwing the party to convince other, even bigger fish that they are more financially solvent than they in fact are so they can borrow money from the bigger fish before they have to declare bankruptcy. Either way, the social climber can count on an abundance of Big Fish, several Turtles, at least one Swan, and perhaps a genuine Whale. This is the kind of pond you want to fish in!
Your invitation will usually indicate what you’re expected to wear:
For a man, Black Tie means what was once politely called a “dinner suit”—and vulgurly referred to as a “Tux.” Women are expected to know that for them Black Tie translates as a dress no one has seen you in.
In recent years, it has become increasingly and annoyingly common to receive dinner dance invitations that merely stipulate “Festive Dress”—an attire designation that is both confusing and culturally insensitive. If you are a member of a South American indigenous tribe, be forewarned: Festive Dress does not mean showing up festooned in parrot feathers and an ancestral penis sheath, though if you have the body for it, that is undeniably a great conversation starter.
What Festive Dress really means is that your hostess has a killer couture ensemble she is dying to wear and wants to make sure she cuts a better figure than you by tricking you into wearing something that will make you look foolish and underdressed in comparison. Those who followed our advice in Chapter 1 and have used a sartorial statement (turban/sari/kilt, etc.) to define themselves should not break character. If you haven’t, play it safe and wear something that makes you look simply elegant and far richer than you are. How do you do that? If your closet doesn’t contain evening wear, know that every rich zip code has at least one charity thrift shop. Purchase a secondhand tux or festive gown that’s thirty years out of fashion and casually mention your grandfather/grandmother wore it to the White House.
Because dinner dances are ninety-nine times out of a hundred seated affairs, the social climber will once again find they are at the mercy of their host. However, if the dinner dance is particularly large or the dinner tables are set up in a separate location that is slightly removed from the area where the cocktail hour takes place, you do have other options.
If you hate the seat you’ve been assigned and you’re not at the host’s table, you can get away with exchanging your place card with that of someone who has better dinner partners. But be careful. It’s a bold move. And know that if you hope to get away with it, you have to not only change the placement of your name card, but also change the seating of at least two other tables—twenty other people—to make sure you are not immediately suspected.
EMPOWERING THOUGHT #18
Switching your place card at a seated event is not bad manners. Getting caught switching your place card at a seated event is bad manners.
If logistics or the presence of a sharp-eyed party planner or major domo of a Big Fish make it impossible for you to rearrange the seating on the sly, do not be dejected. Your dinner table obligations at a dinner dance are more relaxed than those at a small dinner party. Yes, you still have to make polite conversation with the people on your left and right for a minimum of five minutes, but after that, as soon as the band begins to play and couples take to the dance floor, you
can and should escape.
Unlike those given favorable placement at an A list table, you will be free to ditch the dullards you’ve been stuck with and get a head start table-hopping. When you pop into an empty seat vacated by a couple who’ve left for the dance floor at a table of Big Fish, you’ll not only be able to take over the conversation—you can drink their wine and eat their lamb chops before they get back to the table.
Now, old-school sticklers will tell us that every male guest should ask every woman at the table to dance at least once. Remember this: Most seating is arranged boy-girl. And since most tables seat ten, that’s five dances, i.e., too much time to waste, especially if you’ve gotten a bum seat to begin with.
Today, a man isn’t obligated to dance with anyone. But he will seem more suave than he is and be more likely to be invited to the next big party if he takes his hostess for a spin around the dance floor. If you are suave but do not know how to dance, consult YouTube; mastering the rudiments of the Dougie, Sprinkler, and Electric Slide will get you on and off the dance floor without breaking one of her toes.
The Social Climber's Bible: A Book of Manners, Practical Tips, and Spiritual Advice forthe Upwardly Mobile Page 8
