Imaginary Pizza
I sometimes think that as kids, we were all natural PUAs. I was reminded of this when I went to refill my laundry card the other morning.
A little girl (who was maybe 2 or 3) was watching me as I was operating an ATM-like machine.
Wanting to socialize, she blurted out: “I had pizza for lunch and dinner yesterday.”
I said ”Really? That’s a lot of pizza. What did you have on them? Cheese?”
She smiled and said: “Mushrooms and mustard!”
“Mustard,” I said. “That must have been a really spicy pizza!”
“No it wasn’t! It was imaginary pizza.”
A few moments later, as I was leaving the room, she stuck her head out the door and said: “Today, I’m going to have real pizza!”
Trust me. It was very cute and she knew exactly what she was doing! So, what can I learn about social interactions from this precocious 2 or 3 year old?
Let’s see (and feel free to disagree or add any personal observations):
1. Fearless approach. I doubt that this little girl every gave any thought to the possibility that I would reject her opening. She wanted to talk, so that’s exactly what she did. Such a healthy attitude. When did we unlearn this? For me, I think it was years of my parents instructing me not to talk to strangers. Maybe that’s good advice for a 2 to 3 year old (this one’s mother was in the room, so she’s forgiven), but not good advice for people in their 20s and beyond.
2. No outcome in mind/being in the moment. This little girl didn’t care if she would ever see me again. Again, she wanted to talk. That’s all she wanted out of the interaction: to share a moment with somebody. Now, I know that we’re all aiming to number close or create an instant date with the women who we meet when we go out, but I have to admit: I’m simply not that advanced yet. For us beginners, maybe the whole point is to share a moment. And, I suspect, even for the more advanced, you’re just stringing together a series of moments.
3. Vibe. What we say isn’t as important as how we say it. Look at her opening: it was a silly, nonsensical line. In fact, she completely made it up. It was an invention. It was an excuse to talk.
And how about how we talk to kids. What can we learn from that?
Well, I think the obvious thing is the frame. I don’t know about you, but unless they’re throwing major tantrums, I think that almost anything a kid does is cute. And, isn’t that one of the frames that Lance Mason talks about? That everything a woman does is cute? Even if she’s giving us a hard time?
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