If you are making a new acquaintance, there is always that awkward moment when you are trying to appraise the other individual's interests.

Let's say tennis comes up. The two of you establish that you both play, then you probe delicately to see if you might play together. "Oh, I'm no good," the other person says, and you perk up -- only to learn that "no good" means that he was an 18th seed at the U.S. Open in 1983.

So, too, with technology. With 200 million PCs out there, nearly all of us sit at one on one occasion or another. So, socially, when someone mentions that he is "into technology," one seizes on the opportunity to commence an exciting new friendship.

But there are broad parameters for techno-literacy. Experts in their fields often pooh-pooh their own knowledge -- because they know what they do not know. Novices, on the other hand, oftimes exaggerate their understanding -- because they do not know what they do not know.

So how is a person to gauge whether a new acquaintance may make a suitable friend? Here are a few simple guidelines for succeeding at dicey chore of reaching out to fellow technophiles.

• Never bruise a novice's confidence.

No one likes a oaf. If you have logged ten thousand keyboard hours, and you have made a novice feel like a novice, there is no glory there. In fact, shame on you.

With the less experienced, encouragement is always in order. Clap your comrade on the back, have him know that you think no less of him for his inexperience, and say, "God, I wish I could be in your place today, and just dipping a first toe in this enjoyable pastime!"

• A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.

Everyone needs a friendly word of counsel from time to time. If you know that a friend is grappling with a vexing computer problem, have him or her know your confidence in him (or her) is total.

Say: "Surely you won't let formatting your hard drive get you down. Not with your fine qualities as a business person and father. "Anyone can boot up a computer, but it takes someone pretty special to raise offspring like Einar and Egregia."

• If the other person is obviously boasting, gently nudge the conversation in a more constructive direction.

Many people go on and on about things that other people simply cannot appreciate or understand. It is best at such times to apply to their inflated opinion the corrective discipline of a hatpin:

If they say: "I have a 450 MHz processor and a 22GB hard disk, a Philips CD-RW, in a 10-bay tower," come back with "My, that must be hard to justify."

• Show your appreciation.

No matter how pedestrian the technology, don't be a cad. Indicate your sincere interest. If necessary, feign fascination,

"Yes, with this barcode reader, every item in the store is in our database. When I pass the item over the reader, it consults the database, calculates the product, the size, and today's price. The cashier no longer has to key in every item by hand"

"What will they think of next?"

• Excuse yourself.

Sometimes it is you who is at the mercy of a techno-blowhard. I was hosting a party and one guest was hounding me with detailed instructions on how to edit my Windows Registry. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I would rather slit my wrists than edit my Windows Registry -- well, actually, they're about the same.

This is what I came up with:

"I'm having problems with the nonproprietary BIOS on my system -- some minute incompatibility with the Intel chipset. Hey, I know what I'll do. I've got a pretty good-sized wafer of gallium arsenide in the cleanroom downstairs. If you'll excuse me ..."

• If called out, play possum.

Sometimes an individual's intentions are not so friendly as your own. All he wants is to lord it over you that his knowledge is vast, while yours is minuscule. Such persons must be destroyed.

The best strategy to lure the individual into patronizing you. Then, when the moment is perfect, recoil with a carefully considered response. The impression you create can be exquisite.

"I thought you said your system was state of the art. It's a Packard Bell! And look, you're not even using a bidirectional printer cable!"

"Why don't you go screw yourself?"

So you see, mastering a few rules of interpersonal computer relations is not a difficult chore. But the payoff is enriching, to your computer friends, who cannot help but be struck by the delicacy of your sensibility.

Best of all is the satisfaction that goes with being a good person.