Holding your tounge

[Guest]

Last Friday night, I was in a mixed set at On The Border. 2 guy, 3 women. My experience has been that with a set of any more than 3 people you just can't always be engaged in the conversation. It drifts from person to person. You can use your allocated time to push the conversation here or there but you can't dominate it like you can with smaller sets.

So my question is this, how long is to long to be quiet in a large mixed set? What is your rule of thumb on this?

[Guest]

There's no set time limit. It is good to direct the conversation towards a topic that both you and the group can engage in. I tend to find a commonality between me and 2 other people in the group. After getting in a deeper conversation with them I don't have to worry about this dynamic as much.

If you are going to be quiet direct the conversation so that you are the one being talked to. The guy that's being talked to can be quiet yet extremely alpha (ceo, mob leader, celebrity).