Hey Baby. What's your Line?

Anyone who's ever been to a bar and started a conversation with a stranger has either asked or been asked the following:


"So what do you do?"


And that's my all time biggest pet peeve.


What do I do? I do a lot of things. I read, I write, I knit, I cook, and, in addition to helping Karen out, I work for a well recognized media outlet that reaches over 26 million people a week. But is that last fact any more relevant than the others?


Sure you can learn a lot about someone by where they work, but it's not entirely indicative of who they are as a person. So why are we so quick to ask a complete stranger what they do for a living?


Here, I suggest other more intriguing questions to be asked the next time you're out at a social scene:


1. What did you write your college application essay about?
2. If you could be named anything else, which name would you choose?
3. If you were a piece of fruit, what would you be and why? (Just be prepared for them to answer with something sugary so they can tell you how "sweet" they are.)
4. Laser jet or ink jet?
5. Aisle seat or window seat?
6. If you were a bumper sticker, what would you say?
7. What's the hardest word for you to spell or pronounce?
8. Do you believe in ghosts and psychics?
9. What's your favorite funny film?
10. Have you ever read the books of Karen Salmansohn? (Hey -- I'm Karen's assistant, so of course I wanna help plug my boss -- so, why not make her a good conversation starter?!)


Basically, there's nothing more impressive to me than someone who can think on their feet. And asking feisty and surprising questions like these really catches people off guard and leaves them with little or no time to react. So not only will you make a killer first impression, but you'll receive truly candid answers. And that's such a wonderful (if not the only) way to really learn who someone is as a person.


Oh, and P.S. If you're wondering what the answer to yesterday's blog riddle is, it's "Those in Heaven feed each other."


Holley Simmons Reporting!