It is to laugh

by Edna Geister

With some groups it will not be necessary to provide advertisements, and it will be sufficient to announce that each group is to think of its own and that a prize will be given to the most original stunt, but with the average group it is very helpful to have either a list of advertisements at hand, together with properties, or to be sure that in each group there is someone who can be depended upon to take the initiative for that group in putting on a really effective stunt. I speak from experience!

Limited Conversation.

Perhaps you are responsible for the “socializing” of a very large group, most of the guests being strangers to each other, and you wish to break the ice and to get guests into the spirit that makes for easy and truly social conversation.

To announce certain topics of conversation and ask that everyone talk on just those topics with one’s neighbors in such a group as has just been described, often has an effect that is more tongue-tieing than socializing in its effect, and a human kink must be put into the plan to make it really effective in getting your guests into the relaxed and jovial spirit that does wonders with a group, however large or “strange.”

A list of topics for conversation is made out as usual, but a ruling is added that makes conversation on these topics far more difficult and therefore far more interesting than just plain conversation which is very evidently for the purpose of “mixing up” a strange group. That ruling might be that every statement must be the very opposite of what one really thinks about the question of the moment. For example, the question may be, “Do you believe in Woman Suffrage?” According to the ruling, no matter how thoroughly a man despises the thought of Woman Suffrage, he is obliged to vehemently defend it, and no matter how ardent a suffragette his immediate neighbor may be, she is to scorn it with every breath.

After a minute or two the next topic is announced. It might be “What do you like best?” and everyone is to pick upon the thing he most dislikes and eulogize it to the best of his ability. That same ruling applies to all the six or seven topics announced, and to say the least, startling statements are the result, to say nothing of the hilarity that is inevitable over a conversation with the Baptist minister’s wife who vows that picking potato bugs is her favorite pastime!

This group is a large one, so no effort is made to pair guests off with partners but topics are announced, together with the ruling that one’s immediate neighbors are one’s partners, and that guards will patrol the room to see that no one talks on any subject but the one announced, to see that everyone is talking, and that the limitation imposed is very strictly observed. To make sure that they talk to more than one person the guests are asked to change their immediate neighborhoods between topics. The breaking of any of these rules calls for a forfeit.

If one is entertaining a small group in a home, a progressive system of partners is arranged, by which guests progress from one partner to another. Each one is given a card on which a number is written, ladies holding even numbers and men, odd. On the men’s cards in addition, is written their conversation program, namely, the numbers of the partners they are to have for the different topics of conversation, and it is their business to hunt up each new partner as the signal for the change is given. For example, Mr. Hunt is No. 5. His program reads: 6, 8, 2, 12, 4, 10. That means that for the first topic his partner is to be No. 6 and that when the game starts he is to hunt her up and talk earnestly with her on the first topic. A bell is rung after about two minutes and he must hunt up No. 8 and talk with her about the second topic, and so he progresses from one partner to another until he has talked with his last partner on the last topic.

Another limitation which may be applied to conversation is that all statements must contain one’s own initials. The question may be, “What is your favorite sport?” Mr. Graham’s initials are S. M. G. so his favorite sport is obliged to be, “Selling moldy groceries!”

Still another limitation maybe that all remarks be untruths. A further limitation, and a painful one, but one which is particularly good for a small crowd, is that all statements must be made in rhyme, no matter how inevitably abominable the rhyming may be!