Tact

Marketing colleague to Rolex lady: “Let me be perfectly honest, I’m only here (at the Basel fair) because of you.”

Rolex lady turns to me, asks: “He says that to everyone, doesn’t he?”

Caught between discomfort at the directness and pleasure at the opportunity to humiliate, I stutter “No, you’re the first.”

She persists: “Is that because I'm the first person he’s met at the fair so far?”

I decide to be nice and say no.

But when colleague asks me to take a picture of the two of them with his handycam, I’m emboldened enough to say: “That he does with everyone.”

Tonight, I dine alone.