Adults Are Okay, But…
This weekend, I went to Lisa Pilzer’s 30th birthday party in Las Vegas, NV. The main event was in the Caramel lounge in the Bellagio. The food was fantastic, the company was illustrious, and Lisa was as beautiful and charismatic as ever.
Getting Children to Love You
Adults are okay, but kids are great.
I served a two-year ecclesiastical mission in Las Vegas, NV a few years ago. Rather than fly to Vegas and stay in an expensive hotel, I made arrangements with an old missionary companion to drive down for the weekend and stay with an old friend of his. We arrived at their house around 6:00 PM on Saturday, and I set about using the following highly effective and repeatable steps to make their children love me.
Step 1: Love the Children
I love kids, and I love to make kids love me. When we first came to the Smiths’ (name changed) home, their second-youngest daughter (3) hid behind her mother’s leg and peered out at us warily. She was the cutest little thing; I knew I would have to get her to like me or I’d never forgive myself.
Step 2: Pay Attention
Getting kids to love you is very straightforward. Every child wants attention, and every child wants more of it than the next child. Just the other day, I was snowboarding down a run at Park City Mountain Resort, and two kids were on a lift together shouting, “Hi! Hi!” to everyone skiing below. I looked up and waved, and they shouted, “YES!” Every kid thinks that way inside. Every one.
Step 3: Do What They Do
I sat down to watch cartoons with the kids. This is key–kids will never trust you if you’re too adult to do what they do. Watch TV with them, play house with them. If they’re very, very young (not talking in sentences yet), you can gain their trust just by making protracted eye contact with them, regardless of whether they look like they want you to or not.
Step 4: Treat Children as Adults
After a few minutes, I asked what the cartoon was they were watching. The 3-year-old girl turned around and said, “I know! I know!” I asked her what it was, and she said, “That’s SpongeBob.” I asked what the cartoon was that we were just watching before, and she said, “The Fairly Odd Parents.” I listened to her reply and looked her in the eye and had a conversation with her about the premise of the cartoons. I never spoke in a “baby voice,” and I never used different words than I would have with any other adult.
By this time, the other kids were noticing all the attention I was paying to their sister. Within moments, the older sister (5) had jumped up on the couch next to me and was telling me about her school. The baby (18 months) waddled up and pulled on my pant leg until I lifted her up onto my lap where she could play with my face.
In the short span of about 15 minutes, I had all the kids vying for my attention. It was stunning to the parents of these shy children. Especially telling was the comment the 3-year-old made after climbing up on me: “Do I know you? Who are you?”
Getting Adults to Love You (Hint: Impossible)
Unfortunately, getting adults to love you is not as straightforward. At 8:00, I met with the Pilzers and their gang of high-falutin friends in the Bellagio. The lounge was elegant. About 40 of us grown-ups stood around taking advantage of the free drinks and endless hors d’oeuvres for two and a half hours.
During this time, I did my best to be social, meeting and greeting everyone I could. A few of Paul’s friends were familiar to me–Russ Reiss and his lovely wife, for instance, are always a pleasure to see at any event. They’re the sole voice of down-to-earth sanity at some of the Pilzers’ events. I probably met a half-dozen new millionaires, executives in Paul’s previous company (Extend Benefits), even an Olympic gold medalist gymnast (Mitch Gaylord). Mitch’s wife, by the way, was stunningly beautiful.
The whole event felt like a sort of social out-of-body experience for me. Here I was, associating with the so-called “cream” of society, taking hors d’oeuvres from young women with large breast implants and skimpy outfits, talking about how business was going, the election results, the snow in Park City, … all over the din of loud popular music I’d heard almost none of before.
Back in Mission Mode
I had a very good time at the party. I felt that as long as I was spending time in the den of sin, I might as well earn some karma points by telling everyone about the Church. I don’t understand why so many members of the Church have such a difficult time telling others about their faith. The steps I perfected by the end of the party were very specific to my circumstances, but similar ideas can be applied anywhere:
Step 1: Ask Where They’re Staying
The party was in the Bellagio, arguably the highest-class hotel in Vegas. Early in every conversation, when the get-to-know-you chit-chat subsided, I asked where they were staying now that they’ve flown in for Lisa’s party. I didn’t really care at all–the objective was to get them to ask me where I’m staying. As soon as they ask that, I have free rein to tell them that I’m staying with an old LDS mission companion here in town rather than a hotel. That led to the next step:
Step 2: Get Them to Ask Where I Went on a Mission
I went on a mission to Las Vegas. It’s a brilliant topic of conversation to have with non-Mormons while at a party in Las Vegas. So, as soon as I let slip that I served an LDS mission (by way of Step 1), I tried to draw out the question of where. In every case but one, I got the question I wanted, and got to make a melodramatic statement, something like, “Hah! Just imagine what it would have been like for one day to be a Mormon missionary in Las Vegas!” They’d laugh, we’d be having a good time, and I’d move on to the final step:
Step 3: Baptize Them in Liquor
No, they actually took care of that part themselves 
There was no real final step; depending on how the conversation was going, I would do anything from change the subject to explain the law of fast offerings.
Executive Summary
I decided this weekend that while making friends with adults is in fact possible, it is far more difficult and less immediately rewarding that making friends with children. But hey, at least the adults are predictable enough to be led into asking me for a conversation about God–even when they’re in the most unlikely of places.
March 28th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
HOLY CRAP! that was a really long blog. I don’t think I even read it all.