It’s funny networking is such an exhausting task but it can be extremely rewarding. I find that even though I’m relatively good at it I always have this little dread that on first introduction me and my new “not-friend” will clash violently. The majority of times the worst that happens is that you enter into small talk, bore each other and find a polite way to part company.

However, in the past I’ve had some particularly amusing incidents. In one networking event I attended I met a director friend of mine at a fairly large company we talked for a little while and she introduced me to her yoga instructor (who said that she wanted to come because she was herself a business women). Well to cut a long story short I spent about 45 minutes trying to get rid of this yoga instructor, she started off by telling that I would be ideal for yoga, that I had beutiful skin and then debating philosophical viewpoints (against science and technology). I tried to get away by saying I had to go and talk to someone else but she’d just come along and deride any conversation that I had with any back into anti-science and tech talk. In the end I told her that I really had to talk to some people about business and I had to do it alone, she finally took the hint (after a wasted 45min in a networking event). That was the first time I learnt my lesson, it is okay to be a little rude to people in networking events if they don’t follow networking ettiquette, gracefully saying goodbye!