Artful Dodging: Painless Techniques for Avoiding Anyone Anytime

by Jeanne Martinet

Overview

A lighthearted and indispensable guide to gracefully side-stepping anyone, by the author of The Art of Mingling
Whether you're dodging an overbearing boss, the chatty guy next to you on an overcrowded flight, your least favorite client, your least favorite parent, or anyone else, this lighthearted, indispensable guide will show you how to make a seamless, effective escape.
The perfect guide for our over-committed, hectic times, Artful Dodging puts an end to all those feeble excuses no one ever believes. It banishes, once and for all, the notion of an invitation you can't refuse. In an almost Kryptonite-like fashion, it helps to break the vice of social obligation that has so many of us in its grip. Yes, it's true: Artful Dodging can set you free.
Topics include: the pros and cons of using a Classic Excuse * mastering the Duck and Cover * using voice mail, Call Waiting, and other telephone techniques * emergency escape tactics * flattery, melodrama, and other dodging diversions * vanishing into thin air * and much more.
For everyone who's mastered the art of making friends and now needs to improve at shaking them, Artful Dodging comes to the rescue, with humor, smarts, and a great exit line.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466848122
Publisher:	St. Martin's Press
Publication date:	06/25/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	151
File size:	635 KB

About the Author

Jeanne Martinet is the author of The Art of Mingling, The Faux Pas Survival Guide, Getting Beyond Hello, and Come-ons, Comebacks, and Kiss-offs. A master dodger as well as an inveterate mingler, she lives in New York City. But if you're planning on calling her, she won't be home.

Editorial Reviews

Humorous self-help from the author of The Art of Mingling (not reviewed). Your boss wants you to work late but you have tickets to a concert. Your boring next-door neighbor is regaling you with the latest doings of his charmless child. You don't want to go on that blind date your aunt is striving to arrange. What is to be done? In the age of the new assertiveness, you can just flat-out say no and let the chips fall where they may. But that, argues Martinet, would be rude, hurtful, and possibly bad for your career or health. Her suggestions form this brief but amusing ode to the social white lie and those who can dispense it gracefully, the polite evasion that she fears has been replaced by blunt rejection and other pain-giving alternatives. She suggests instead dodging, which she defines as "navigating smoothly around life's minor obstacles." To that end, she schools readers in arcane arts of deception that range from the outright lie to the careful insinuation, from faking illness to blaming your spouse, lover, roommate, or business partner. As befits a properly raised Southern lady, Martinet dispenses this wisdom in a genteel and gentle tone, even offering a series of ethical do's and don'ts to guide the would-be dodger in seeing when to invoke her teachings. Although Martinet occasionally strays into silliness, she is generally grounded in a certain psychological realism that makes her not only funny but genuinely useful. Perhaps she is right when she claims that "becoming more proficient in the art of dodging will actually make you a nicer, more socially evolved person." At the very least, your excuses for missing deadlines will becomemoreinventive.

Kirkus Reviews