marcicat | hi, I’m boring

Occasionally, my workplace has social-type events. Holiday parties, after-hours get-togethers, bowling nights, etc. Which means occasionally I have to find ways to get out of said events. And since the answer to ‘are you going to this event?’ is really never supposed to be ‘no, I don’t want to,’ regardless of how “voluntary” they are, a bit of extra strategy is required.

The best technique I’ve found, when asked such a question, is to say ‘no’ and immediately follow it up with an alternate activity you will be doing which is INCREDIBLY DULL. For example: “Will you be going bowling?” “No, I’ll be vacuuming my kitchen.” (Note: this is actually what I did Friday night instead of bowling.)

The key elements to this strategy are 1) be truthful (it will come across as more convincing, unless you are good at lying, in which case, say whatever); and 2) pick a truthful element of your plans that is super boring. No one cares about my vacuuming the kitchen plans. In fact, just mentioning them is enough to make most people decide there is little benefit to encouraging my sparkling presence at their social event.

In short: being boring is a surprisingly effective strategy for avoiding social obligations. Who knew?

Mirrored from The Marci Rating System.