Name Dropping

At the conference, I was introduced to a lot of famous researchers by virtue of standing next to important people.  One morning, while waiting to meet Roommate Claude, I spotted Whitecastle in the lobby making deals, and Query next to him just hanging out.  By joining them on the couch, I got to meet an Important Young MD Researcher that just about every institution is trying to recruit.  I was pleased to be introduced because in addition to doing cool work, I knew that Meredith had worked with this guy, often raved about what a nice guy he is, and just recently published a paper with him.  With Whitecastle making the introduction and Meredith's name to grease the wheels, all seemed to be working in my networking favour.  

Just seconds later, however, I lost all the goodwill Meredith's name transpired by responding to Whitecastle's comments about me with "Wait, are you complimenting me?  This has never happened before."  After that comment, it probably won't again.  In retrospect, I should've talked about how much I liked Important Researcher (or Whitecastle's) work.  But in my defense, I slept very poorly for most of the weekend, was completely thrown by Whitecastle's uncharacteristic remarks, and being in an unfamiliar setting, my foot got lost walking around and accidentally ended up in my foot.