Mirror Magazine

Mirror Magazine

The art of bluffing
By Aditha Dissanayake
How often have you come back from a party or social gathering feeling you are too stupid to be alive? How often have you lamented to yourself, “Everyone was talking about books or movies or teledramas, and you sat there as if you had just landed from the moon. You haven’t seen any of the teledramas, or the movies or read the books everyone else seems to have seen or read. How stupid can you be?”

Stop. Don’t despair. Here are some tips which would help you to bluff your way through any conversation, however stupid you may feel.

If someone comes up to you while you are trying to balance a glass of wine and a paper plate filled with snacks at a cocktail and asks you, after having talked about the weather and what so-and-so did in parliament, whether you have read The English Patient, The God of Small Things, The Tin Drum or Ulysess, tell him, “Not recently.” Of course you may never even have heard of these books till now, but why let him know?

If he proceeds to quote from the Mahabharatha and asks if you have read it, tell him, “Not in English.” This would make him think you are an erudite scholar who has not only read the Mahabharatha, but, without settling for a mere translation, read it in its original text. You are guaranteed he will eagerly change the subject after hearing such an answer.

As it always does at almost every social gathering, a time will come when someone will ask you to comment on a book, film or play you know nothing about. When this happens here are some descriptive terms given by Tim Clark in How To Appear To Know More Than You Really Do, that might come handy.

Tell them “I prefer the earlier works. They are more pristine,” (Few people know that one meaning of pristine is “earlier”) or tell them, “I prefer the later works, they are more mature.”

If the conversation turns to a teledrama ask “Ah, isn’t that the one where the parents oppose the union of two young lovers? Or isn’t that the one where a dead man turns up and says he never died?” If it’s about a political programme nod your head and say, “Ahhh I watched that. Isn’t that the discussion where everyone lost their tempers and called each other names?”

If it is about a Hindi movie tell them, “Yes. Isn’t that the one in which Sharuk Khan jerks his head upwards and sideways and bursts into tears every five minutes while Ayshwarya Ray gazes at everything around her with the same expression on her face, no matter what the situation?” If it is about an English movie tell them, yes, you remember watching it because it was about a brutal killing, where a dedicated but eccentric detective discovers the murderer seconds before the movie ends.

Chances are, even if you manage to get through these questions, at some point in the conversation someone is bound to turn to you and ask, “What do you think?” You can’t honestly tell the gathereing that you don’t know, because you had not been listening. You can’t tell them that while they were talking you had been trying to recall whether you switched off the iron or locked the back door before you left home. When this happens try to get away by answering the question by shaking your head from side to side and saying sagely, “It all depends.”

But, if all else fails and someone accuses you of bluffing, don’t panic. Do What The Old Farmers’ Almanac Book of Everyday Advice suggests.

Take some food into your mouth and chew it thoughtfully as if you are formulating a reply. Then take a deep breath and point to your throat. Rush out of the dining room making choking sounds. Return calmly to the horrified gathering and say, “I am all right, now.” If performed persuasively this will make everyone forget the question they asked you. Instead they will congratulate you for having recovered from your bout of choking. Much easier though, to quote the Danish physicist Niels Bohr, who said, “There are trivial truths and the great truths.

The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true.” Having said that, while your questioners try to figure out what you just said, excuse yourself and make a graceful exit.

Top