world's worst networker

Being unemployed for more than six months has meant attending quite a few networking events - luncheons, cocktail receptions, panel discussions, you name it, I've paid $35 to $50 to attend it. Sometimes they're worthwhile, other times I inadvertently sit next to the wrong person. Like a woman with whom I already interviewed and have been rejected by. Or the guy who may have great contacts, but has such bad breath that I wonder if his contacts avoid in-person meetings with him.

Sometimes I manage to find the wrong person at a cocktail reception. Like the other night, I was at an event hosted by my alma mater and was seeing a lot of old classmates. From across the (poorly lit) reception, I spotted a guy I'd had a lot of classes with, who also knows my husband, but whom I hadn't seen in awhile. I enthusiastically walk up to him and say, "Hey, how are you?!" He looks down at my nametag and reads my last name(s) out loud, smiling. I make small talk about the keynote speaker and his organization, which had to do with the Olympics. Then he tells me how he's been to all the past Olympics around the world and is hoping to get to London. Somehow I finally realized HE IS NOT WHO I THOUGHT HE WAS. I'm talking to a total stranger, and now that I am closer to him I realize he does not have the red hair my classmate had. I look around the room and mumble something about having to find someone in particular and slowly back away.

As we're leaving, I point the guy out to my husband and say, "I thought that guy was P." Brian laughs and says, "Did you go up to him and start talking to him?" I reply, "Of course I did."

I will never find a job this way.