ARE YOU A GOOD MIXER?

Otago Witness, Issue 4029, 2 June 1931, Page 63

ARE YOU A GOOD MIXER?

You may be first-rate at mixing a eake, but do you mix well with your fel-low-creatures ?

Are you, in the American sense of the term, a “ good mixer ” ? Bo you find that you are able to talk about colour photography with. Mr Snooks, and how to-remove fruit stains with Mrs Snooks? Can you switch from

what Betsy Brown said when he failed to turn up at the rendezvous, to a total stranger’s impressions of North Africa? Are you equally at home with a tennis enthusiast and a talkie fan?

If so, you are a good mixer, and will probably be asked to more parties than there arc days in the month.

But what about the other side of the question? Listen to Lorna: “ Enjoy the party? ” she exclaims fretfully. “Oh, not a bit; it was an absolute wash-out. I didn’t know a soul, and there was a man there who would tell me how he waited four hours to hear “Faust,” and I loathe music! And then there was a girl who was mad about folk dancing and wanted me to join a class. As if I would! I hate meeting a whole lot of new people with whom I’ve nothing in common.” There are, alas, heaps of girls like Lorna, who miss invitations, good times, the chance of romance, by stubbornly refusing to mix, or be interested in anything but their own pet particular subjects. They get into such a groove, with one or two best friends, that they can enjoy nothing but office gossip and office jokes, and it is far too much trouble to meet anyone‘new, to pretend to be interested in cricket scores, if you aren’t, or to listen to the trouble Mrs Smith is having with the boiler, without a yawn.

In the same way, there is Mrs Brown who finds it impossible to have any conversation with anyone who does not know how to make a sultana roll, and Chloe Reynolds who is at an art school and remains dumb in the face of “ the awful Philistine ” who is uncertain whether Tintoretto is Australian burgundy or a cold water dye! You may not be in the least interested in stamp collecting, or how to make short crust, or the habits of the Fiji Islanders, but at least you can pretend to be, instead of turning away with a superior sniff, or a bored smile.

To be a “ good mixer ” you want equal quantities of unselfishness, sympathy, and open-mindedness, but it’s worth the effort involved. Oh shortsighted non-mixers, that crashing bore, old Mrs Brown may have an anything but boring son! The inartistic Jones may possess a charming and artistic sister, while the badminton you thought you’d loathe may, in time, become your favourite hobby, just as you come” to love the classical music you thought would bore you sjiff. Remember that “ mix well ” is good advice concerning people as well as cakes! —Silvia Thorn-Drury, in Women’s Weekly.