Kevin Marshall's America
Why do I do this? It’s really obnoxious.
Most recently it happened to me at the Restoration Festival (check tomorrow for a post about it). Shortly after I arrived, I was making the rounds and checking out the gorgeous St. Joseph’s Church, which even in a state of disrepair is still a sight to behold. Over the hushed whispers of hipsters and the clangs and donks of a drumset being brought onto the stage for the next performance, I heard “hey, Kevin Marshall!”
I looked over and saw a friendly face waving at me, so I approached with my hand outstretched.
“Hey, man! How ya been?”
“Good,” he responded. “But you have no idea who I am.”
“Oh,” I replied. “You’re right.”
Andrew Gregory, who I didn't actually know until this past Saturday.
He laughed. Turns out, we’d never met before (even though I thought he’d looked familiar). It was Andrew Gregory, who is an occasional commenter and contributor over on the TU’s CRUMBS music blog (which is maintained by folks in the local music scene and is highly recommended along with the blog Nippertown).
Andrew’s a cool cat. He introduced me to a few cool people, we talked music for a while, and a great time was had by all.
For the most part, I have a terrible memory when it comes to people. Even if a person makes a great impression on me, I’ll often draw a blank when I run into them. This happens a LOT with people I went to High School with. Sometimes, though, I’ll be able to gather enough information through the ensuing conversation to piece it together as they talk; hopefully without them realizing that I had no idea who they were at first.
Maybe there’s only room for so many people in my brain, like the maximum number of people allowed in a music venue as deemed by the fire marshal.
Regardless, I always pretend I remember. Sure, it’s dishonest, but I’d rather awkwardly stumble my way through remembering who they are than hurt their feelings. Besides, there’s a good chance that I don’t know the person at all, and it’s just another Times Union blogger screwing with my head.
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STALK ME
and see, I thought all of you TU bloggers got together in some huge conference room, ate stale danish, performed obligatory back patting and talked about things like comment moderation, crazy replies, and dinosaur language translation.
Dang, Kevin – you described me exactly. I am TERRIBLE with names. I was thinking the other day that I’ve probably had a couple hundred people through here for the llama walks. Some become regulars – those, if they come here more than say, three times, I remember. The others sometimes I don’t remember meeting and boy do I hate that fault in me. There’s a really cool guy, Butch….I called him Bruce for way too long. So long, that he started smiling whenever I said ‘Bruce’ and then it finally sunk in. And I LOVE the name Butch.
Bad me last night at the blogger social – a woman said ‘hi’ like she knew me, and even said ‘remember me?’ and I think I said, ‘Sure.’……she said we meet at the ‘Pump Station’ and then I KNEW it wasn’t me and had to admit I hadn’t met her. aack.
This happens to me from time to time as well. Someone recognizes me from highschool or something and comes over, knows my name, my brother, and goes through the whole, “how you been?” deal and I talk for a little bit and then we part ways.
That’s when my wife turns to me and says, “So who was that?”
To which I reply, “I have absolutely no idea.”
I pretend to remember people’s names, sometimes too. I think everyone does it. It’s just less acceptable when you’re younger, everyone wants to believe they have an impact that makes them a very memorable person.
I just had this happen at my sister’s wedding. I went and sat down in the family section at the church, and this nice woman I didn’t recognize gave me a hug. I figured it was my new brother-in-law’s sister (whom I hadn’t met) and chatted friendly-like with her until she asked if I was doing a reading. I was out of the loop on the wedding planning, but even I knew the sisters were reading. It was clearly the wrong person. I was eventually able to whisper to my boyfriend that I had no idea who she was, and he told me it was my teenage niece’s paternal grandmother– someone I’d met easily 3-4 times before.
In my defense, the woman started taking better care of herself and turned into a total babe. She could seriously be the poster child for cleaning up your lifestyle.
As I get older, I have come to realize that I can’t remember all these people I meet. I have started admitting it right up front. Usually I just say “I gotta be honest, I don’t remember your name”. That gets past the awkward “Hey, you…ummm…yeah” phase. Senility is setting in quickly.
I work with 120 people, and yet I know their first and last names by heart. Except there are two girls that could pass as twins and I constantly get them mixed up. I still think that’s pretty good. Actually, I’m good with names and faces for people I run into on a fairly consistent basis, like once a year or so.
It’s when I haven’t seen a person in 10 years and all of a sudden they rush over to me and start talking about something that happened 15 years ago that I have trouble. In all honesty, I pretend to know them to avoid harsh feelings. I mean if after 10 years they feel the need to recount something that happened even longer ago as fun, then I won’t be rude and tell them I have no idea who the heck they are.
I always tell my wife, if I don’t introduce you, it’s because I don’t rmember who they are…..then she’ll do the “I’m Deb by the way.” and they’ll always give their name. PLus that way she also reminds me what her name is.
I got this when I used to work in at the photo desk in Eckerd back in high school. The problem was, I had to get people’s prints out of the cabinet which were marked by their name. More than once, I had to say “so, um, how do you spell your last name again?” “S-M-I-T-H” “oh, right”
I’m not exactly a standout and I never expect people to remember me. When I greet someone I haven’t seen in a while, I say, “Hi, you probably don’t remember me, I’m Roz…” and I’m always pleasantly surprised when s/he smiles, gives me a look and replies, “Uh, YES, I remember you!”