the Art of charm and friendships
you might be thinking, why do I need to charm my friends? I’ve belched national anthems in front of them and held their hair back while they chucked up half a bottle of vodka. but charm can be a delightful party favor and an effective way to keep your friends coming back for more. here are a few do’s and don’ts that will lead your friends to think you’ve sprouted charm virtually overnight.
1. DO make a mental list of 5-15 people that take a high priority in your life. if you’re not the Instant Messaging type, make sure you email/call them at least once a week to keep in touch. if you’re the scattered type, make little notes, like “E has a problem with her mother’s new boyfriend,” or “make sure to remember F just started new job”, or “listen to T prattle on about the new puppy”. remember to ask them about their lives, not just ramble on about yours. this is what friends appreciate – when you call them and ask them specifically about the details of their life. it’s kind of like being some sort of celebrity. only with less paparazzi.
2. DON’T make plans you can’t keep, otherwise known as flaking out, especially with a friend you haven’t seen in a while. while it’s alright to flake out every now and then on your daily/weekly friends by saying, “dude, I’m seriously too beat / dude, I’m going to get laid / dude, I’m dead broke,” it’s not okay to do this to casual friends or long-time-no-see friends. since these types of friends do not know your vie quotidienne, they will simply think you are a stupid flake who didn’t want to see them in the first place. this will set you back in their estimation. this is counter to our plan of charming the collective pants off the world.
3. DO play charming host/hostess any time your friends are visiting chez vous. simply flopping down on your couch, kicking off your shoes and turning on the telly is inappropriate when you have guests, unless your guest is the same best friend that watched you tinkle in the baby pool when you were three and break your teeth by biking directly into an oak tree at age fifteen. when you have friends over, DO make sure they’re comfortably seated, their thirsts are quenched and any other needs are satisfied. if they don’t know where your bathroom is, don’t simply send them in the general direction with a wave – walk them there. make sure you have food/drinks/ashtrays at your house, or else just don’t have your friends over, you lazy slob. DO tidy up a little if possible, because there’s nothing friends like less than sitting on a couch full of your dirty laundry and empty potato chip bags. if you’re like me, you’ll light some candles and make sure the bathroom smells fresh, as well as decorate the bedroom with fresh flowers [current rotation: orchids] if it’s that kind of visit. lastly, if you’re having a small get together, DO introduce one set of friends to another. there’s nothing more annoying that simply expecting complete strangers to mingle over punch. get off your lazy ass and exchange their names to get them started. as a side bonus, their chances of going home with each other will greatly increase and that means they’ll always think of you fondly. which, again, along with the global-pants-charming-off, is sort of the point.
4. DON’T be a sloppy malicious blabbermouth. no one likes a tattletale, and while it’s okay to discuss a mutual friend’s love life/job/slovenliness without malice over a pint, the rule is don’t say anything about an acquaintance that you couldn’t tell them to their face. for instance, the following conversation with a member of your circle is appropriate:
you: what do you think of B’s new boyfriend? I’m not sure about his dancing skills! (laugh)
friend: oh, I KNOW! we’ll have to tell B to give him some classes!
this alternate conversation is almost without exception, completely inappropriate:
you: what do you think of B’s new boyfriend? honestly, I think he’s
a consummate asshole and B deserves to be slapped for dating him.
friend: oh, I totally agree.
why is it inappropriate? because while your gossip-partner might agree with your casual dismissal of a mutual friend’s boyfriend, he/she may not necessarily care who else hears about your out-of-line assessment of someone else’s private life. she may be, in fact, one of those careless blabbermouths that bring down empires. this is where the “say it to their face” rule applies. if you could tease B about the boyfriend’s dancing faux pas, then it’s alright to remark on it to mutual friends “behind B’s back”. otherwise, keep those juicy bits of gossip strictly limited to those two or three friends with whom you have an understood vault. then, by all means, luridly gossip away. I know I do.
5. lastly, DO remind your friends and loved ones on a regular basis how much they mean to you. not just in gestures, like remembering their birthday or rule #1, but also verbally. it’s a harsh world out there, always looking to give one a thrashing, so there’s nothing quite like hearing from a friend how great they think one is. so, when you see a friend you haven’t seen in a while, give them a big hug and a smile and tell them you’ve missed their friendly presence. make sure when a friend is down on themselves, you remind them how smashingly fun and wonderful you think they are. if you see a funny greeting card that reminds you of someone far away, send it to them for no reason. if you are one of those emotionally crippled human beings that has a hell of a time expressing any type of deep or caring emotions, and run screaming away from words like, “love” and “close” and “need”, then stop reading this immediately – you may become successful, shrewd, wise, or rich but you’ll never be charming. for the rest of you, frequently reminding your pals that you think they’re a right-on group of individuals is both a nice way to perk up their lives, and thus a way to assure that people will be around for YOU when you need them. it’s a give and take, yeah?
those five brief tips should help you navigate the fun but often fraught-with-faux-pas landmines of the friendship world. that you’re a generally good person and not a complete raging misanthrope, of course, is essential to success. but even good people fail on charm, and so these five nuggets of charm should help you elevate your goodness to mythic levels. from now on, you will no longer be described as “yah, bob’s a good chap, I suppose” because no one can think of what you’ve done wrong, but rather, “man, that bob! such a good guy, always with a smile and a kind word. no get-together is the same without bob, eh?” which, of course, is your ultimate goal.

you might think that charm is simply a false, pandering method employed by politicians, ballroom dancers and martha stewart. you’re wrong. charm is an almost forgotten art, like the art of courting and sewing. the art of charm serves a delightful double purpose – while it manages to bring joy to the world around you, it’s also a ragingly effective way to get what you want, all the time. hence, “living the charmed life”.
now – while I may be a simpering dilettante in many other arenas of life, I pride myself on being effortlessly, ruthlessly, and meltingly charming. as such, I’ll go ahead and call myself an “expert”, since you’re more likely to listen to me if I have credentials. now, there are a few basic areas we need to cover, and then you’re ready to go into the world and emit charm. today, this panel will address …
charm and the stranger
let’s face it. unless you live in a tiny, particularly friendly village in the wilds of canada or some other godforsaken province, where you’re related to everyone and no one has grueling 9-to-5 jobs and mortage payments, chances are you’ve had unpleasant interactions with strangers before. I will use an important and universal example to briefly demonstrate how charm can come in handy in a pinch.
situaton: you’re standing at your local deli counter and you quickly mumble a grumpy tired request ciggies and coffee, like this: “mumble mumble camel lights and coffee black with sugar, three”. you’re not particularly being grumpy to your deli man, you’ve got nothing against him. you’re just bloody exhausted and your mother was nagging you on the phone this morning and you couldn’t find your favorite black shoes so you had to wear brown ones that throw your whole outfit off-kilter. for whatever reason, you can barely stumble out a decent human greeting to the man providing you with two of your most treasured addictions. when you reach into your pocket, you realize you’re 50 cents completely short. your deli man shrugs, takes back the hallowed cigarettes, and dumps your cofffee. what’s it to him that you don’t get your fix(es)?
alternate situation: go back to the point where you come in tired and grumpy looking for your cigs/coffee. leave in the bit about the mother and the shoes, but this time, when you open the deli door and the deli man looks up at the jangly noise (for there’s always a jangly noise), do something different. smile at your deli man. you can smile ruefully, as if to say “isn’t it sodding early in the morning?” or you can smile cheerfully and imply “I am genuinely happy to see you, man who serves me coffee, even though I don’t know you”. doesn’t matter how. but smile at him. open your tired, grumpy, spoiled mouth and say “hello!” when you walk up to the counter. now your deli man will respond with, “hello!” in return. now say, “I’d like a pack of camel lights and a black coffee, three sugars please.” don’t simply mumble the product names and make the deli man feel like nothing more than a robot retrieving sellable goods. use the inbetweeny words as well. now – when you dig around in your oversized bag and realize you are fifty cents short, the deli man is more likely to agree when you promise him to swing by on your way home and give him the requisite small change which is admittedly not keeping his business afloat. you will walk out of the deli establishment with BOTH your fixes intact.
see how charm affected the situation? what has happened now is that the deli man understands that you are treating him like a worthy fellow human being. he stands behind that smelly counter all day, dealing with snippy horrible monsters of people who simply come in and bark their demands at him, even though they make four times what he makes and go to the shore on the weekends. but now the deli man recognizes you as someone who treats him well, and it never hurts to have a deli man on your side. my deli man even gave me a starburst when it was my birthday because I’m always so sweet to him and I ask about his wife who was ailing last month.
some other situations in which charm and interactions with strangers collide:
1. smile at people with whom you make eye contact on the subway. if you at least acknowledge that you’re both riding into the bowels of hell on a one-way train, someone might actually yield a seat to you, or not shove you into your own cup of coffee while trying to exit the train.
2. when talking to customer service people on the phone – paying a bill, reserving a flight, solving a retail dispute – be incredibly nice to them. speak full sentences, do not yell, and make it clear you understand that your ripped shirt/unsatisfactory plane seats/high bills are not personally their fault. these people, these disembodied voices, have been known to bend over backwards to help you if you apply the right amount of charm and understanding and speak like a decent educated human being instead of someone barking at a disobedient dog who’s just tinkled on the sofa.
3. don’t mock taxi drivers, their countries, or other taxi drivers. you’re in their car and the doors are locked. this isn’t a matter of charm, it’s a matter of stupidity. if you have a conflict with the direction the driver is taking or the way he drives, simply politely lean forward and address it to him. this will dramatically increase your chances of a. surviving and b. not being thrown in some karmic version of hell for being a nasty twit to foreign taxi drivers.
in conclusion: using simple methods of politeness, mutual acknowledgement of humanity, and a winning smile will take you miles when it comes to interacting with total strangers you’ll never see again. because even people that you may never see again can actually better your life and do things your way. when people do things your way, you’re generally happier. this, in turn, will prove to yourself and the world that you do, indeed, live a charmed life.
stay tuned for: the Art of charm and friends, next.