The Rules of Introduction are Simple.

Recently I sat at a bar and watched the televisions, Sex and the City on one and ESPN baseball highlights on the other, nursing my beer, trying to figure out a way to entertain myself.

I wasn’t there alone, I was with a guy I sometimes date, who knew the bar owner and several of the bartenders. It seems they played on a basketball league together, or refereed in the same league, or both, I don’t really know. They were also both involved in the supporting the street festival that was happening that weekend, that we had just come from.

I am perfectly capable of having conversations with strangers, or showing interest in conversations I know nothing about, but it had been a long day and I found myself trying to figure out what I should be doing in this particular situation.

I hadn’t been introduced to them, you see, and they were so familiar with each other it seemed out of place for me to introduce myself. Plus my pseudo-date seemed blithely unaware of what social etiquette called for. I couldn’t think of the right way to explain it to him.

THE RULES OF INTRODUCTION ARE SIMPLE: INTRODUCE PEOPLE. When you bring someone to an event with multiple people, take a few minutes to walk your someone around the group and make introductions. Give them an “in”, their association to you, so they feel comfortable striking up conversations on their own (Hot Tip: This will also reduce your need to baby-sit).

When you are with someone and run into someone else you know, you should introduce those people to each other. Do so early in the conversation so your someone doesn't just stand there, not knowing who you're talking to. They’ll probably just look interested and nod their head, but at least they're not some random person your friend is looking at thinking, who is that person?

This can get tricky, for example when you yourself don’t remember the name of the person you’ve just run into. If you’re only going to chat for a minute, you could be okay to skip the introduction. If you’re going to chat with that person for awhile, though, there’s really no way to get around starting the introduction and apologizing for not remembering the individual’s name. It can be uncomfortable, especially if you really should know their name. The sneaky option, which I use, is to pre-warn all my friends that if I haven’t introduced them right away it’s because I don’t remember the name of the person we’ve run into, and they should go ahead and introduce themselves.

It can be delicate yes, but while it is awkward to not remember the name of random people you see, it is unequivocally rude to leave the person you’re with out of the conversation. You don’t want them spacing out at the bar watching TV without sound or closed captioning. At least in my case there were popcorn snacks.