I can officially say that I’ve been a writer, proofreader and journalist for more than ten years. That’s impressive because it’s the longest continuous time I’ve been able to do anything for, except maybe for staying alive.

If you’ll excuse the brief moment of nostalgia, I’ve done a lot of looking back over the past few days. The first short story that made it to print, the publication of my first-ever article about bridge, my first time crossing into the Caribbean writing market.

There were plenty of great firsts (and a few that weren’t so great).

I’ve done plenty of interviews over the years: Some have been politicians, some have been CEO’s, some have been regular people with fascinating accounts or stories and many have been bridge players.

One of the strangest interviews happened when I decided to call up a few local bridge clubs.

As I normally do, I started by looking up a few club websites and taking down some numbers: I felt good about having a good handful of interviewees for the piece and set to contacting them soon after.

I started with a message. A simple one, introducing myself as journalist so-and-so, writing a post about bridge – and of course, I’m looking for comments and feedback from local bridge players.

Only two players from the group of clubs I contacted came back with an answer. I’m disappointed to say this, and I’d thought that clubs would have been happier to speak up.

The first player responded with a nice, useable answer; the other, not so much. Instead, they wanted to know who I was and why I was contacting them.

I won’t mention the player and I won’t mention the club. Mostly, I don’t remember, and I wouldn’t say it if I did – but this should serve as a cautionary tale to all bridge clubs who might accidentally offer up a cold shoulder to someone who could have been a first-time bridge player, but was put off by the response.

I attempted to explain why I was contacting them for a second time, but to no avail. I had the right contact person from the right club, but they still seemed baffled about why I dared contact them about bridge. A few back-and-forth messages got us nowhere.

I didn’t return back to the same club for an answer. In fact, eventually I realized it was a lost cause, and I was left with a few more questions than I had answers.

Sure, I understand that people have day jobs outside of their bridge club. I understand that people are busy, pressed for time or otherwise might not care when they’re contacted – but in this case, the cold shoulder helped nobody. Not me, not you, not the club and not the readers on who’s behalf I was getting the answers.

When putting your contact details online as a representative for your bridge club, don’t be surprised when someone gets in touch with a query – and if you can’t answer it or you’re not willing to, surely you can refer someone in the right direction.

If not, choose a separate number to your personal one for All Bridge Enquiries and use that instead.