I’m a naturally gifted bluffer, a skillset I may or may not have picked up from my father (depending on whether he’s reading this).

And for many years I found perpetual bluffing to be the most effective means of overcoming my innate social awkwardness and sense of inadequacy.

With music, for example, I’d always claim familiarity with an artist’s work – sometimes their entire back catalogue – to curry favour or impose my authority as a music buff, regardless of whether I really knew what I was talking about.

My trick was to try and ensure I had at least one deep(ish) point of reference per artist, above and beyond rudimentary ‘Best Of’ knowledge, so that my claims carried an air of credibility.

I might be asked, “What’s your opinion of Frank Zappa?”

To which I’d respond, without hesitation, “Oh I’m a big fan of Hot Rats – in fact I was surprised at how similar it sounded to early Floyd.”

Have I heard Hot Rats? Yes, a long time ago. Does it sound a bit like early Pink Floyd? Yes, probably. Do I know anything at all about Frank Zappa beyond this? No, other than a vague sense that he may have named one of his children ‘Moon Unit’.

As a technique, I found that this form of bluffery worked a treat and could be successfully applied to other fields – film, literature, art, even politics or business. If you sound like you know what you’re talking about, most people are willing to take you at your word.

Now this might be described as a classic case of ‘fake it until you make it’. However, as I’ve advanced in life and career, accruing something one might reasonably describe as an actual body of knowledge, the limitations of bluffing have become increasingly apparent.

 ‘Faking it’ is a decent near-term survival strategy. ‘Making it’ requires you to learn things along the way.

If all you do is bluff – asserting knowledge you don’t have and leading everyone to assume that you already know what they’re talking about – it becomes pure chance as to whether anyone will inadvertently share the missing information you need to learn.

Take something as simple as a name. You’re reacquainted with someone you’ve met before, but you can’t remember their name. Or worse, you recognise them but can’t recall the first thing about them. Or in the disaster scenario, they don’t seem familiar at all and you’re greeting them with the idiot stare of a total stranger.

To bluff in such circumstances is to open yourself up to the possibility of abject embarrassment and mutual humiliation, should you fail to extract the essential missing information from the conversation that follows. It’s simple cause and effect – if a person believes that you already know their name, they’re highly unlikely to volunteer it.

Hence why, in recent years I’ve dispensed with the bluffing and sought to lay bare the extent of my ignorance. No, I haven’t read that seminal book on marketing – in fact I’m surprisingly poorly read. No, I don’t know that artist – but please tell me more because it sounds like they’d be up my street. No, I can’t remember meeting you – I’m really sorry, I have a young child and am suffering sleep deprivation, please remind me what you do.

Because what I’ve begun to realise is that there’s a big difference between not knowing something, and being an idiot.

And when you refuse to share or even acknowledge what you don’t know, it becomes extremely tricky for other people to make any sort of meaningful distinction between the two.

Photo by Umar Farooq on Unsplash