Telephone fundraising is analogous to sweet-talking. I know this because it is my job - I keep myself in beer and pretzels as a student by calling our alumni. I've done it for two years, and I'm pretty good at it by now - scary-good, when I think about it. The fact that I'm able to talk to a complete stranger for a minimum of five minutes, and build enough of a connection for that strange individual to donate hundreds of dollars to the school is thoroughly boggling, when I think about it. Whats more interesting is that this ability doesn't necessarily translate into real-life communication skills. For example, I'm just no fun at parties, and I can't seem to separate girls from their phone numbers in the same way I separate fools from their money. I wonder, is it karma? Years of interrupting people at dinner and aggressively pursuing credit-card numbers dooming me to compensatory social awkwardness? Or perhaps it is a psychological disconnect, where I lack the ability to make quick and deep connections with my fellow humans - unless I cannot see their faces.