Networking isn’t Hunting

Networking is one of those words that mean different things to different people. I’ll admit this word used to make me feel icky and jittery.

I remember attending my first (and probably my last) breakfast meeting a few years ago.

I remember it as clearly as if it happened yesterday.

I walk into a large room packed with people, mostly men. I have been invited by a female acquaintance who isn’t at the meeting. I don’t know anyone here and I feel like a fly walking into the spider’s web.

Seriously.

I want to turn and run but it’s too late. Too many people are standing by the entrance (which is also the exit) and I’m swallowed up by the crowd.

I don’t think I’d be able to find my way back out if I tried to leave before everyone else. That’s how directionally dysfunctional I am, but that’s not the point.

My heart is beating like an African drum and I feel like there’s some fancy strumming going on in my belly.

Did I really leave home at 6.30 am to subject myself to this?

I’m not even a morning person. What am I doing here?

I talk briefly with a few people, maybe five. At least 20 others swoop down on me, like a kite bearing down on a newly-hatched chick.

But there’s no mother hen to protect this chick.

Some people press business cards into my reluctant hands and are gone in hot seconds.

Phew! No introductions, no small talk, no human interaction. Just cards being swapped in a hurry.

OK, maybe some of the card pushers muttered a quick ‘hello’, but no more. When I leave the breakfast meeting, I have all these business cards and no idea what I will do with them.

Anyway I must have managed to pass out a few of my own cards because the next day I got an email from this guy who had also attended the breakfast meeting. He’d taken the liberty of adding me to his email newsletter list without bothering to ask me first.

Guess he thought I’d be thrilled. I wasn’t and I sent him a polite cease-and-desist email. To his credit, he took me off his list right away.

So that was my introduction to ‘networking’. And you can tell I hated it.

So when I read an article online (sorry I can’t remember where or I’d post the link here – this was a long time before I decided to start this blog) in which the writer said networking brought up images of strangers standing uncomfortably around a room drinking out of cheap plastic cups, it made me think of my experience at the breakfast meeting.

The writer went on to say that many people would rather have their kneecaps broken than attend a networking event, I could relate to that.

But broken kneecaps? No thanks. I don’t do pain very well. In fact I’d do almost anything to avoid pain.

So do you remember your very first networking event? What was it like? And what have you learned? Please use the comment section to share your experience.