Hot Thots. Lessons In Good Social Energy, or ‘PIP‘ (Part 1). By Dish Stanley

Where I go to a fancy charity luncheon to get schooled on how we help improve infant health and walk away learning some much-need social skills. And which brush is best for eyeliner.

Has it ever happened to you that you are at an event and you meet somebody who has what I’ll call ‘perfect interactive presence?’ Okay, that’s clunky, forgive me, I’ll explain. It’s my friend Pam’s term. The first time I heard it we were at a cocktail party. She tiptoed over, leaned into me conspiratorially, nodded toward the far corner of the room and said, in staccato as if it were one long sentence “red dress, gold clutch, talked to her in cocktail line, she’s to PIP.”

“Got what?”

“My point is, you want to meet her, Dish. Good social energy.”

In truth I don’t know what PIP is an abbreviation for and I can’t reach Pam. So I made up ’perfect interactive presence,’ as a placeholder for now. I looked it up online and I’m certain it doesn’t stand for what AI suggested it might, which is “Performance Improvement Plan.”

What Pam means by PIP is that ‘this is an excellent person (emphasis is emphatic) to bump into at a cocktail party.’ Or be seated next to at something of more duration, like a dinner party or charity lunch. (Though I truly am sorry if you find yourself at a charity lunch. Sometimes though, I find it can’t be helped.)

A person with PIP has a perfect balance of ‘up energy’ that doesn’t annoy. A person who generates or contributes something amusing to a conversation, but doesn’t dominate. A person who acts as if they are happy to see (or meet) you, in particular, because they make you feel that you’re interesting. A person who can adeptly go up to anybody and introduce themselves, start a fun conversation, ask about you, focus and listen.

If that description makes it sound like it’s easy to have PIP, then why are there so few people with it? Pam and I have struggled with this in an ongoing conversation that has taken place for over a decade.

The answer is that it‘s way harder to have PIP than it sounds.

The way Pam uses it, PIP signifies a glorified status. If it were an SAT test and you took it back in the day, it would be like getting a score above 780 (I’m talking the aughts when I, and many other CRUSH Readers, took our SATs).

For one thing, a prerequisite to having PIP is having a genuine interest in others. In hearing their stories. Maybe I attract a disproportionate number of Mariah Carey’s (i.e., divas) and Tom Selleck-types (no explanation required), but I’ve always taken the position with Pam that most people fail right there. Showing genuine interest.

And there’s the issue that you could be genuinely interested in others but not have the confidence to introduce yourself, or to start a conversation with somebody you don’t know.

And, also, to reach PIP status you‘d have to be able to get the conversation going in some compelling way. In some way that sparks an actually back-and-forth. This is where Pam believes most people fail.

For example, someone with PIP wouldn’t run into a social acquaintance and say “How are you?” No matter how heartfelt it is. That would be phoning it in. It‘s expected and it’s dull and it doesn’t evidence that you already know the person. A PIP would follow an initial hello with an opener like:

“I was hoping you’d be here because I need a great book recommendation.” (It‘s a compliment as well as a conversation starter — and it is tailored to the person’s strength, eg, you need that person’s advice on where to get a black tie suit, the name of his decorator, somebody who can teach me to play backgammon/mah Jong/magic as well as you.” Other strong PIP conversation starters:

“You travel so much. Got any exciting trips coming up?” or

“I saw from your instagram you turned 70. What are you doing to celebrate?”

Let’s say nothing specific comes to mind about this social acquaintance, a PIP move would be noticing something they're wearing (if it’s unique) and asking if they got it some place special.” Or if at a complete loss, “What have you got going on that’s exciting?”

All of these are far superior to actually leading into conversation to “How are you?”.

And yes, I think you can learn PIP. I’ve been trying to up my PIP game ever since I moved last year, to varying degrees of success. I’ll write more about my efforts at upping my PIP in Part 2, but the reason I bring all this up is that I’ve found that a good way to increase my PIP is to recognize PIP in others. So I want to tell you about this woman I just met.

I was at a fancy charity lunch. It is something I try to politely avoid if I can. But I went to show support for a good friend, which is a good reason to do a lot of things you might not otherwise be inclined to do. My friend Candace has been deeply involved in various leadership positions with this particular charity over many years.

It started with a cocktail hour that exceeded my patience even more than Adrien Brody’s Oscar acceptance speech. Then we (meaning a few hundred nearly identically-dressed women uniformly attired in some variation of floral, about half of whom had lips so blown up with filler they resembled blobfish) moved from a room with exquisite views of the Atlantic Ocean into a stately dining room. It had much less expansive views, but who cared because it felt like progress.

I went to the spot with my name on the place card and stood behind my chair, waiting for Candace (the host) to join us before taking a seat, as did eight of her nine guests. The woman on my left looked familiar, and I warmly re-introduced myself to “Cindy.” I complimented her on how great she looked, saying, “Oh my god, you’re ageless,” while really actually hoping (praying) she would respond by telling me who did her filler. Because she, too, had succumbed to blobfish lips and I wanted to make sure to avoid whomever she (and evidently half the room) used for filler injections. (Cindy didn’t bite.)

Meanwhile, the other guest — the ninth guest — was walking the perimeter of the table and warmly introducing herself to each of Candace’s guests. I mean, the rest of us were standing there, talking to whomever was next to us. She was the only one going around to say hello to everyone. “Hello, I’m Beth,” she said when she got to me. “What a breath of fresh air! You are the only one who didn’t wear floral. The lemons are perfect. I’m glad we are seated near enough to get to know each other.“

(I wore a dress that had a lemon motif. Not surprisingly, I was the only one. What it had come down to is that my iron broke and it was the only clean, well-pressed semi-springy dress in my closet.)

Sitting down, I immediately sent a text to my old friend Pam about Beth: “Lavender floral dress, beautiful eyes, seated to the right of the host, big PIP,” I wrote, even though Pam was thousands of miles away in Boston, but because I really miss her. And then, “Hello! At charity lunch.“

Need I point out that while I was ‘complimenting‘ the lunch companion on my left for my own selfish reasons (to avoid whoever is responsible for her blobfish lip injections), Beth was paying people real compliments. Me: no PIP (not showing genuine interest in others). Beth: PIP (noticing something special about me).

It turns out I was seated to the host’s immediate left, and ‘Beth with PIP‘ was seated to the host’s immediate right. Early in the lunch the host, picking up on a book recommendation I had previously passed on, was telling me how much she was enjoying King Maker (about Pamela Harriman, by Sonia Purnell. (I wrote about it here.) “Oh, I’ve been looking for something interesting,” said Beth, “What was the most surprising thing you learned about Harriman?” “That Gianni Agnelli relied on Harriman’s friendship and counsel for over forty years after their affair ended. He called her every morning at 7a.m. until the day she died,” I responded. “Oh, that’s good, Beth replied.

The Harriman conversation led to talking about other famous Washington hostesses. Having gone to Georgetown Law School in the early 90’s when Georgette Mosbacher’s husband was Secretary of Commerce, I threw Georgette’s name into the mix. (Not because I knew firsthand, but because I’d read about her in The Washington Post’s social column.)

"Oh, Georgette is a fabulous host," Beth said. “Those were the days when everybody mixed socially, whichever political party. It was fun. My husband and I went to a dinner party at the Mosbachers. Do you know what she told me her secret is?”

“Please share,” I said.

“Leaning in close, looking straight into my eyes and lowering her voice,” she said “the size of her table. She swears by an 8’ round. Has them custom made.”

At that moment I had gotten a close look at Beth’s eyes. Her eyeliner was perfect. Not too thick, not too thin. A gracious arc. “Your eyes are beautiful,” I said. “Your eyeliner is perfect. My New Year’s Resolution was learning to apply eyeliner and I’m still flailing. Will you share your secret?”

“It’s all about the brush,“ she said, “it has to be angled and very stiff.” Taking a pen out of her purse, she drew this on the back of my program:

As the lunch was wrapping up, I noticed how she gave warm good bye’s to many of the women at the table, saying how lucky she felt to be among so many interesting women and to many of them “I hope to run into you soon.”

On the way home — just to be sure — I cynically said to Candace, “Your friend Beth, is she running for office?” “Oh no,” she said, “Private person. She’s just great with people.”

As a student of PIP, after getting home I replayed in my mind all of Beth’s PIP moves, starting with walking around the table to say hello to everyone, then noticing something ‘special‘ about me, asking a great follow-up question about my book recommendation — the most surprising thing I learned — instead of “what did you like about it?”, the amusing antidote about Georgette Mosbacher, then sharing her biggest eyeliner secret (and actually drawing a picture of it) and ending with the fact that her ‘good bye’s’ included saying that she wished to run into people again.

The next day, Candace forwarded me a text. “This is from Beth,” she wrote. In Beth’s text there was a link to “the best eyeliner brush on the market” and a note that said “Send me an email if you want any more tips, like which eyeliner brand I use. Your eyes are beautiful as they are, but you’ll learn in no time.”

Of course I jumped on that. What I’d really like to pick up is some of her PIP. But while I work on that, it can’t hurt to improve my eyeliner technique, right?

PS: YOUR eyes are beautiful as they are, CRUSHES, but any chance you want me to pass on Beth’s eyeliner tips?

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