The Art of Groveling

The Art of Groveling...is that spelt with one 'l' or two, I am not sure...but one thing I know about the grovel artist is that, one needs a keen eye and a lot of consciousness what, how and when to beg, ie when to retract one's step as oppose to appear too keen and a tad too aggressive.

What do I know about this "art"? Well, I am a researcher. Is that enough reason to explain?

I had just been groveling to this person whom I wanted to get an interview done with him. Originally I did not need to grovel as he wanted to be interviewed, but it got confusing in terms of the day, ie Monday or Tuesday, and I had already written to about seven people based on the original date of intent of interviewing him, and I told him I had to contact seven other people and re-arrange with them in order to accomodate to a new date that he had confusingly wanted to be interviewed on...bla,bla,bla...

Well, of course, I want something from him, so I had to send another email this morning and grovel a bit. Not too much because we don't want to sound like we are desperate, do we? So, I said, yeah, well...these people probably are not going to see me, and he is the most important to meet anyway, so I did not mind seeing him whenever he wants to see me...so, isn't that groveling?

It is tiresome, a bit like lobbying, you know, you want something, so you try to sort of "hang around the other person's skirt", so you get to see "where the skirt sways" so to speak...sorry I do not have a better metaphor to explain this phenomenon, but that will do for now. Sounds a bit voyeuristic on hindsight, but what the heck!