The Gas and Link Method

Arabic Hellos > Irish Goodbyes

HK

Randa I’ve been thinking about etiquette this week. Mainly because I just rewatched No Country For Old Men and there’s a fire scene at the end where the El Paso Sheriff and Sheriff Ed Tom Bell are talking about how everything in rural Texas has gone to shit. There’s been a prolonged brutal killing spree over a drug deal gone wrong, and hilariously Bell’s takeaway is “Well i think once you quit hearing ‘sir’ and ‘ma'am’ the rest is soon to follow.” The El Paso cop is like “yup.” It’s genius.

As an aspiring takesman myself I have no choice but to respect the take that “the reason people are shooting each other in the face with guns and cattle proders is because we’re not polite to each other anymore.”

Now the Texan sheriffs are partially right; we do mostly live in a post-etiquette world. We eat food out of bowls and participate in freak dancing and when I see my friend’s dad I’m dapping him up classic style and hitting him with ‘What’s good, Randy.’ Some, if not all of those things might have gotten me killed in like 1930.

Now i’m fine mostly with the death of etiquette, but there are a few things I do think we’ve lost. Where do you fall on this? 

RS

One time when I was a kid my mom beat me up (don’t worry about it) bc i referred to my friend’s dad as “tony” and she said i was supposed to call him “Mr. Anderson.” i protested– “but he TOLD US to call him Tony!” she was not buying it. 

you might think this means i am anti-etiquette. not exactly. as a child of arab muslim immigrants i grew up between two different etiquette worlds. when i went to dinner parties as a kid, i was expected to say hello to every single person at the party. i had to walk around the room and one-by-one kiss ppl on the cheek or shake hands. real heads will know this gets even worse when you don’t know how many times you’re supposed to cheek kiss (palestinians only do it twice, lebanese ppl do it three times) and then you’re in an awkward head bobbing battle with an auntie. anyway i HATED this as a kid but now i think it’s kinda great.

we should adopt this form of etiquette. it’s probably good to make eye contact with every single person at a party right when you arrive, instead of huddling with the people you know the best and bumping into others later. it’s nice and makes you more approachable.

and another thing about these arab dinner parties i attended in my youth. i would often be in disbelief listening to my parents gas me up for my various achievements, while at home i was mostly scolded for being rude or messy or whatever. but at parties it was ALL gas… this is also something we should be doing…

HK

hitting each member of the squad with an atomized platonic smooch (APS) is soooooo sick. Mr. and Mrs. Sakallah were on to something….

It’s interesting that you bring up specifically introduction etiquette because when I’m in the trenches, the intro IS the place where I wish there was more collective decorum. A lot of people absolutely brick introductions. 

RS

yeah for a long time i got introduced with, “this is my friend randa, she RAPS” and then people would inevitably respond by asking me to “spit a quick 16” which is not really like, introduction material. if you are going to freestyle at a party it has to happen spontaneously at the end of it.

HK

Yea there’s no coming back from that. I was once introduced as ‘a guy who went viral on Twitter’ several years ago and I get heart palpitations when i think back to meekly explaining the thrust of my stupid joke to a pretty girl at a house party. NOT GOOD!

Thankfully, here at Good Hang, we’ve developed a nearly foolproof system of party introduction. The Brooklyn Gas n’ Link.

Step 1: GAS 

Most introductions at parties lead to a conversation that is mid at best. You are fighting an uphill battle for the hearts and minds of the person you’re introducing your friend to. That's why you’ve got to immediately lead with gassing your friend up to the person you are introducing them to. The Sakallahs understood this. It's important here to also get a little superficial. You aren’t hitting them with like the lovey dovey stuff, you are attention grabbing. That is to say that “hey this is randa she runs this really cool newsletter called hot singles” will be much more successful than “hey this is randa shes a wonderfully active listener and a kind and thoughtful friend”. If someone introduced me to a “kind and thoughtful person” at Sharlenes I’m plotting my next trip to the bathroom the second they tell me where in Brooklyn they live. BORING!!!

Step 2: Link

We’re about 90 seconds into the interaction… it’s hitting its first waning moment. But you know this is coming. Here is where you wrack your brain for ANYTHING the two people have in common. “Oh yeah, you and randa you guys are both uh have been to Costa Rica.” Bang. “Oh yea randa and I went to this pizza place near Columbia…i saw you um…i saw you biking up by Columbia a few months ago”. Money! You can go with something better than either of those but my point is it doesn’t need to be good. 

The Brooklyn Gas n’ Link isn’t foolproof, not every conversation is a winner, but until we get mainstream buy-in for atomized platonic smooches, this is the best we’re gonna get. 

RS

ok, class! now that you have learned the GNL method, it’s time to practice…

since we don’t all have vision pros and can’t virtually cheek-kiss each other yet, please gas up a friend in the comment section… and then LINK them to this website!