[] Approach Alingge first with a friendly greeting. You did say you would introduce her to Zhengui after all. Make a point to discuss what you're trying to work on within hearing of Wang Chao, and then greet him as if you weren't expecting him.
I know the subject has moved on, but I have more observations on this vote and nobody can stop me. Mwahaha.
One of the worries expressed with the above approach is that it's Ling Qi just running away from something she doesn't like, which undermines the purpose of our efforts overall. The reality is more complicated than that. Ling Qi's principle objective is to make nice with Wang Chao as a useful contact for provincial politics, at the moment and more broadly. Her secondary objective is to stop not doing not that. PMR-style practice is a tertiary priority in terms of approaching Wang Chao. I'm going to put aside the question of viability in dissecting what this vote does.
Now, we've seen in previous internal musing from Ling Qi some of her reservations towards socializing with Wang Chao. Of the top of my head, I can remember him not making an impressive first impression, her feeling awkward about trying to make friends with geopolitical goals in mind as the starting motive, and discomfort with approaching someone from a place of weakness or vulnerability. The last one's the biggest, obviously. She likely has trouble with it because she likes to think she's gotten strong and going back to begging favors from those stronger than her stings and worries at her pride, and... because he's a dude. Still has issues and reservations with trust there, when she has other options available to her.
So, like, yes the issues Ling Qi has with going straight up to the guy to ask him a favor are rooted in hangups we're also trying to outgrow. However, when you look at the fundamental dynamics of the situation, that's a distraction from what this plan means. The basic premise with this choice is that there are circumstances to Ling Qi's goals that are disfavourable, so let's change them.
That is, in fact, a big deal. It's huge. Whatever else that may be going into the decision, it's a choice to take an active and proactive hand in recarving the world to a shape more to her liking, and prosecuting her campaign on that new terrain. Rather than just engaging with a problem, it's choosing to wrestle with the problems of the problem. This is the ingredient that, in its absence, lead to a lot of Ling Qi's more lackluster successes and failures: initiative. Ling Qi's problem solving is often placid or uninitiated until forced and down to the wire, which doesn't allow her to put her resources in place to actually be used.
Actually taking an interest in changing the circumstances of an engagement is a huge step forward in being the kind of actor Ling Qi thought she should be in the bloody moon dream, before she balked. She can't go off half-cocked while walking among giants. Even among peers, it's exceedingly foolish unless there is no choice ahead of time. The prep work isn't clearly superior in this specific circumstance, but out of respect for the underlying principle of getting off her ass to Moon-style herself some kind of advantage, I'll change my vote.
[X] Approach Alingge first with a friendly greeting. You did say you would introduce her to Zhengui after all. Make a point to discuss what you're trying to work on within hearing of Wang Chao, and then greet him as if you weren't expecting him.
