Last night I went to a networking event put on by the CPRS (Canadian Public Relations Society), of which I am a recent member of. There was a few people from my class there, a few other's I recognized from my school and a bunch of people I'd never seen before in my life. All and all, it was a nice little event for people to get to know the board of the CPRS.
Here's the problem I had however:
We were supposed to be going around and meeting all the board members, but it was in a very informal setting. Everyone was just kind of standing around with a drink in hand. The board members were primarily talking amongst themselves, and we the students had to kindly interup all of their conversations just to say hello and introduce ourselves.
Now, I'm usually pretty good about budding into other people's conversations. I usually don't care if I interrupt people in the middle of their thoughts or sentences, but it seems like a whole different ball game at an event like this. These aren't my friends talking about last night's hockey game and I can just jump in. This is the President of the society looking like he's having an intense conversation with the chairman in charge of sponsorships, and I'm just this lowly student who wants to say hello for the one in a million chance that they'd even remember me in the future. I don't usually intimidate very easily, but there's something weird when you're put in a situation like that.
All and all, I wound up interrupting a lot of conversations last night, and although it felt awkward at times, I think it was worth it in the long run, and hopefully I stood out in a crowd of my peers.
