The Kallipolis Kounsel presents Socionomics Step 1: Establish Familiarity
How do you transition from being a stranger to an acquaintance to a friend? These early stages of relational familiarity are as essential as the later nurturing of relationships. There are many analogies that can be used for the development of any type of relationships: baking a cake, growing a plant, or constructing a building; Either way, the point is that progress is a process. In Step 1, Establishing Familiarity, our goal is to transition the target's view of us from stranger to friend. Sometimes, initial contact is too easy because of the environment in which the target presents itself. For example, at a conference or other professional or academic setting in which networking is encouraged through meet and greets, cocktail lounges, and banquets; this is an extremely easy opportunity considering that the majority of the attendees have similar backgrounds. Take the annual National Society of Black Engineers Nationals conference, at a place like this, making connections is almost effortless because of the multitude of common denominators and common interests. A conversation in this setting might go like this:
Me: Hi, how are you, I'm Devin T. Galt!
Target: Nice to meet you, Devin. I'm _____.
Me: I love your dress! You look amazing, I saw you from across the room and I knew I'd beat myself up if I didn't come talk to you. So, where do you go to school? What's your major?
Target: Thanks! I really like it too. I go to Spelman and I am an Electrical Engineering major. What about you?
Me: I go to West Point and I am an Economics and American Politics double major with a minor in Mechanical Engineering. Where are you from?
Target: O wow, that's a lot, I'm from Nashville, TN. You?
Me: I'm from Birmingham, AL. So, not too far from you. You didn't want to go to Vanderbilt or TSU?
Now. We've made the introductions, infused a bit of flattery, exchanged information about our academic background as well as our geographical backgrounds. Since we were already in an environment where I could make reasonable assumptions about the target, I was able to open with the School and Major question. Judging by the prestige or quality of their school and intensity of their major, I can reasonably start to formulate a profile on the target. Coupled with the knowledge of their city and state of origin, you can not only assume reasonable things about their ideals, principles, and sensibilities based on the assumption of the societal norms of that area. It also allows you an opportunity to comment on something about them, illustrating that you know something about their life. The not too far line and mentions of other colleges in Nashville will show the target that I am familiar with their surroundings, that we have shared experiences and knowledge. For the purposes of this particular step, we will stop there for the familiar settings, leaving room for Step 2: Convey Interest.
In unfamiliar settings, your work is cut out for you a bit more but this is where following the steps that we are laying out here will guide you to success. The issue with unfamiliar settings such as a bar, subway, bus, airplane, or any other number of public places is that you have to create an environment or reason to approach the target. A good personal example is this: I am from Birmingham, AL and as such am an avid Alabama Crimson Tide Football fan. Whenever I see someone in Bama paraphernalia, I always speak to them with the greeting, “Roll Tide!”. This allows me to establish familiarity between the target and I by pinpointing a specific thing that we have in common with one another.
Me: ROLL TIDE!
Target: Damn right, Roll Tide!
::High Five::
Me: I’m from Birmingham, Are you from AL?
Target: Yea, I’m from Birmingham too, where’d you go to high school?
Me: I went to Thompson, graduated in ’07, you?
Target: I went to Homewood, graduated in ’06, did you know ____
I have had many realistic exchanges such as this and you’d be surprised at how well people receive talking about their clothes or shoes in a familiar manner. I do the same thing with people’s shoes, as a shoe aficionado myself, when I see a girl with a fly set of sneakers on, I let her know that I love her shoes and subsequently begin conversation.
So, I say all this to say that the first step is to open the conversation with something that will put you and the target on common ground. If you are in a place where there are already obvious common grounds, tread on that common ground before proceeding into the weeds. If you are in a place where there are not obvious common grounds, then you must chop down the weeds with a machete while you look for common grounds.
Step 2. To follow!
-Devin T. Galt









