Right now, I’m writing to you all from my hotel room at Blogalicious 2011 in Washington DC, and I just had to come out of my cocoon of book-writing and admissions coaching wilderness to write a post, because I am astounded at the fact that 1) I have never been to a conference that wasn’t held by a student club (y’all know I’ve been in school most of my life) and 2) Conferences are great places to meet men!

First things first, the Blogalicious Conference is 98% comprised of women, and the men who are here are mostly married–with kids. Since I’ll be moving to Austin soon, man-hunting was nowhere on my agenda for this conference. However, in all my preparation and anticipation for this event, I never once stopped to think that I might meet a guy here. But I did! Within the first hour of being here in fact. Here’s the story:

I was walking back to my hotel, which is across the street from the conference hotel, and a man pulled up in his car beside me.

“Excuse me, can I talk to you?”

Here we go! “Yes…?”

“I was watching and listening to you inside, and your energy is amazing! You just glow!” he exclaimed. “Can I call you sometime?”

I smiled awkwardly and thanked him. “I don’t live here. I’m moving…” I said hesitantly.

“I can fly!” he said eagerly, and then followed up with, “You don’t have kids, do you? Or a husband? Okay, good.”

So yes, I gave him my card. I don’t know if I’ll ever hear from him (and frankly, I never, ever, ever want to do a long-distance relationship again so it’s probably a good thing). He gave me his card, but it’s mixed in with the hundreds of cards I’ve received from my new blogger friends at Blogalicious, so at the very least, I’ll be following him on Twitter! Despite the lack of a love connection, this experience opened my eyes to a huge source of man-meat that I had never thought of before: (said in the very excited deep Oprah voice) CONFERENCES!

So if you are going to a conference soon (or just went on Google and found one), here are some tips for meeting a man while you get your network on:

1) Bring your pretty game. Blogalicious is an exception, because there are so many beautiful women here! However, there are several conferences going on in this same hotel, and one thing I noticed was how many handsome, be-suited Black men were walking around and how frumpalicious so many of the women at the other conferences were! Granted, suits and mind-numbing panels will drain the sexy out of any woman’s face, but I wanted to run up to them and say, “Do you see how many men are here?! Pull it together!” But of course I didn’t. I just filed it away for myself and all of my CrazyGirls to remember that, even if you are going to an all-women conference, you want to look your best. This DOES NOT mean you should be “that girl” wearing the skin-tight mini-dress to the evening event. It just means that one of the biggest benefits of attending a conference is the tremendous amount of networking that goes on. When you are meeting people–men and women–you want to present yourself as confidently as you can. Looking great will help you exude that confidence. And remember to smile!

2) Bring your business cards. Professional conferences can be a bit socially awkward, since a bunch of people of similar age and interest are in one place but aren’t necessarily sure of each other’s relationship status. Rather than making some guy ask for your number, just have your business cards ready. During a conversation, you can exchange business cards and follow up with one another professionally. If love is in the air, great. If not, you still have a great contact, and maybe a new friend.

3) Approach people. Now, I am usually 100% against women approaching men, chasing men, asking men on dates, etc. but at a conference, I think it is 100% okay to approach a man and start a conversation. Just be sure to keep it casual-professional and appropriate, because the last thing you want is to make a fool of yourself batting your eyelashes at a married man (and perhaps lose an important business contact in the process). I’m very outgoing and energetic, so approaching people is no problem for me. However, if you are more introverted, practice approaching strangers first with women who are at least 15 years older or younger than you. I’ve noticed that women who are much older or much younger than me warm up to me quickly–probably because the younger girls think I’m cool (I wish) and the older women find me amusing. Once you see how friendly and open people are to meeting new people at conferences (that’s what we’re all here for!), you’ll build up the courage to approach some guys. DO NOT approach men with the purpose of flirting; just have a friendly conversation and get to know them.

4) Follow up. Whether it’s men or women, you should be sure to follow up with the people you’ve met at the conference to let them know you enjoyed the conversation, and to propose another discussion if the two of you are going to continue brainstorming/networking/masterminding/etc. When you follow up with the people you’ve met, you keep the relationship going–and if a guy is interested, he’ll speak up at some point. Just don’t follow up flirtatiously or unprofessionally.

Some final big DO NOTs:

• Do not bring a man back to your hotel room. Unless you are looking for a one-night stand (and the awkwardness/embarrassment of having to see him at events for the rest of the weekend), there is no reason for you to invite a man back to your room or to go to his.
• Do not sit around with your girl friends talking at length about the hottie across the room. First of all, other people are going to hear you and it might negatively affect their professional opinion of you, and secondly, you should be forging relationships–not pining! Talk to him or shut up about it.
• Do not drink too much. Conferences are notorious for the amount of wine, beer, and cocktails that flow during the social events. Don’t be the drunk girl who makes a fool of herself and then has to face everyone in the morning with a hangover and a vague memory of backin’ that thang up with the keynote speaker.

And lastly…

I want to give a shout-out to some of the single (as far as I know) blogalicious men I did meet here at the conference, and say that I hope we get to collaborate and meet in person again in the future:

Martin Johnson Pratt – (@iluvblackwomen) a sweet and hilarious social media strategy genius who patiently wrangled/argued/arm-twisted me into snagging the @CrazyGirlNation twitter name (before some random arch-enemy did, forcing me to have one of those annoyingly long Twitter names like @NoReallyImTheRealCrazyGirlNation).

Jesse Jones (@iamjessejones), an inspiring brand-builder and dream cultivator with a crazy-impressive resume and eye-candy wardrobe who I hope is going to be my manager (not to mention he has a very high dreaminess quotient).

Damon Young (@VerySmartBros), co-founder of the ridiculously popular and no-longer-intimidating-to-me site Very Smart Brothas who gave me some great advice on growing CrazyGirlNation–and who I am going to trick into being my mastermind buddy (I have a feeling he hates words like mastermind, but that’s okay).

Now that I’ve equipped you with my best tips, go find yourself a conference and snag yourself a man (or at least a social media strategist, manager, and mastermind buddy)!

Related posts:

1. How Power Couples Do It
2. Why Men Don’t Approach You
3. What to Do When Your Boyfriend Meets Your Parents

Tagged as: conferences, dating, networking