Social networking sites have gone mainstream.  Baby boomers are hanging out on Facebook.  Grandparents are Twittering with their grandkids.

And everyone I meet, including the supposedly tech-preferring Generation Y, is talking about face-to-face meetings and claiming that “face-to-face is the new online.”

Now, I love the ability to connect easily and, yes, to develop very high-quality relationships through social networking sites, email, and the telephone.  I love being able to hide behind my computer screen, and I love the fact that I’ve never met some of the most important people in my life in person.  (Well, conceptually I love it.  In actuality, I’m very eager to meet them … face-to-face.)

But I don’t think face-to-face ever went out of style. 

Everyone I talk with ultimately craves that face-to-face meeting.  Including me.

And yet everyone I talk with struggles with – or even actively dreads – in-person networking.

Online networking feels so much easier than in-person networking.  It’s safer.  You don’t have to worry about what you’re wearing, or whether part of lunch is still stuck between your teeth.  

Online, you’re usually interacting with multiple people all at once.  Someone out of all that mass of online presence will notice you and say something, and if by chance they don’t, it’s still not that awful high-school feeling of standing unnoticed in a crowded room.

Online networking isn’t an event like a chapter meeting, a social mixer, or a presentation.  There’s a whole lot less riding on each interaction.  No response to your Tweet?  The people you normally interact with must not be logged in.  On the other hand, no response to your in-person eye contact and smile?  Whoa – something must be terribly wrong with you!

Yet as I said, ultimately everyone craves that face-to-face meeting.  In the long run, it’s the person you talk with, have coffee with, shake hands with, that you’re more likely to stay connected to and do business with. 

Whether you’re looking for a referral to a plumber, to hire a coach, or to refer someone to the perfect job opportunity, you’ll almost always think first of the person whose eye color you know from personal experience, whose crooked teeth you’ve smiled at, whom you’ve sat next to at a networking event or across from over a coffee-shop table.

I’m not denigrating the online connection at all.  This is me, remember, who loves hiding behind my computer screen.  And I have a business partner who’s also my brother-in-spirit, though we’ve never met in person. 

But we will meet someday – it’s a matter of “when” not “if.” And the friendship and business partnership we’ve formed is, in my mind, the exception that proves the rule.

So no – face-to-face isn’t the “new online.”  It’s the same old thing:  how human beings connect. 

And somehow, we know that the face-to-face connection is more meaningful, more lasting, more important. So it’s no surprise that it’s a lot scarier to connect face-to-face.

How do you feel about in-person networking? 

“Dread” is THE most common answer I heard when I asked the participants signing up for my upcoming networking class.  “Fear” and “embarrassment” are also common responses.  “Networking sucks!” was one woman’s heartfelt cry of pain.

Been there, done that.  I’ve left networking events in tears and filled with profound self-disgust.  I’ve sworn that I’d never go to another networking event. 

And now I’m teaching a class on it, and looking forward to the class, and enjoying the fact that I’m writing the draft of this blog post in between two networking events in one day.  (Final tally:  two events, three potential clients, six new or strengthened contacts.  Not so shabby, for someone who swore she’d never go to another event again!)

The thing is, the rules you’ve been taught about networking don’t work.  (Have you noticed?)

Yet up till now they’ve been the only thing you had to try to keep from feeling like a high-school wallflower all over again.

Join your networking-dreading fellows in my class.  And let’s talk about ways to make networking fun and effective for you.