Pleased as Punch

The YSA conference was not quite what I expected it to be. I thought it was going to be maybe a couple talks and then a bunch of activity type things where you could meet people. Instead it ended up being a couple talks and then one really long talk with this lady who's supposed to be a dating expert or something. She was the one talking about how to ask for digits and other Dating 101 advice, as well as going over the 17 secrets to the male and female psychology. What are the secrets? That information will cost ya, to the tune of $175. No joke. The tagline for her program is "It's not you, it's your technique" which I find strikingly similar to what I discussed about the Men's Health article.

After all the talks they had a dance. After going to these things for 11 years now, I've come to the conclusion that a dance is not the best event to get to know a bunch of people. What you end up with usually is a group of friends standing together most of the time. A slow song will get played now and then and the best looking girls will get asked to dance while everyone else just kind of mills around uncomfortably until the song ends and they go back to standing next to their friends. It's difficult to talk. It's difficult to see. Less than 2% of the people there actually like dancing in public.

That's an example of my "Identify a Problem" skill. Here's an example of my "Fix a Problem" skill: scrap the dance and set up a speed dating activity instead. Spending two minutes with each person at the activity in a safe, controlled setting is a lot less intimidating and a more efficient way of meeting people.

So yeah, the conference wasn't what I expected, and not just because I didn't look at the itinerary before showing up. I'm also really glad I went.