I'll admit it - I tend to be slightly
extroverted. I like talking with people. I'm not afraid to start conversations anywhere there happens to be people around. Nope, I'm not even afraid of making
cold calls. I guess that's why I was so successful in my sales career.
In fact, I
pick up people.
I once met a woman at a networking event that I found interesting, so I called her the next day and said "
I think you're interesting, will you be my friend?" That was in 2001, Madeline and I are good friends to this day. When we first moved to
Atascadero in 2004, Curt and I didn't know a soul - until we went to the opening of the
Carlton Hotel. Sitting at the bar, I found the man sitting next to us very interesting (though we had not yet started a conversation), so I said to him "
we're new in town, will you be our friend?" Come to find out, he was the Chief of Police at
Cal Poly at the time and I just happen to be a sales rep for a company that developed public safety applications. This turned out to be another great friendship.
It's been a couple of years since we last went to the Carlton, so last Friday we decided to meet some friends there for a drink. Curt and I arrived early and sitting across from us were two young men that I found interesting. Wanting to start a conversation, I threw them my new pick up line... "
do you twitter?" (Forget "
what's your sign" or "
do you come here often", this one works *much* better!) This of course got the conversation started and soon we were friends with Chris from Los Angeles.
OK, so here is where it becomes a
really small world - it's a little complicated, but stay with me...
Next day I had a notice that Chris had begun following me on Twitter, so I welcomed him and introduced him to my 1300+ friends. Later that morning, I checked in on his page and noticed he had several new followers since I last peeked. When I went to see who his followers were, I was surprised to see one of them was my daughter,
Bettina. Hmmm, I thought, she must have seen my introduction and decided to follow him too. I better let him know who she is...
This is the twitter exchange that followed:
Me: Bettina, who is following you too is my daughter, she lives in LA
Chris: I work with Bettina at The Farm...
Me: Wait a minute, are you the chris I met last night in Atascadero?
Chris: Yep....
Me: Are you serious, you know Bettina?? OMG!
Chris: yeah, i know Bettina...
Me: Amazed at what a small world this is
Chris: I know, right...
For a moment, I was so confused. When he said he knew Bettina, I thought "oh no, that's not the same Chris I met last night, it must be one of her friends that decided to follow me. I introduced the wrong person!" But come to find out, Chris works at the same restaurant as my daughter, and even car pools at times. Who would have thought?!
We met again that Saturday evening so that I could give him some
Action Wipes and we decided not to tell Bettina until he saw her - he was going to go back to L.A. and tell her he met the coolest woman (cuz, you know,
I am cool). Then he was going to show her a pack of Action Wipes that I had given him - the look on her face would be priceless! Unfortunately, Bettina got laid off before he returned. (
Please, does anyone know of photographer jobs in L.A?)
So Bettina, guess who I met?!
