Comments on: That Thing Where Someone Says Hi and You Pretend You Remember Who They Are

By: Roz Tofinchio

Roz Tofinchio — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 23:52:27 +0000

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!”

By: Jeff

Jeff — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:53:23 +0000

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”

By: Tony Barbaro

Tony Barbaro — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:03:59 +0000

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.

By: Ellie

Ellie — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:32:28 +0000

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.

By: Michael Henry

Michael Henry — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:00:22 +0000

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.

By: Laurel

Laurel — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:31:22 +0000

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.

By: Jen

Jen — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:25:29 +0000

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.

By: Will King

Will King — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:45:21 +0000

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.”

By: Teri Conroy

Teri Conroy — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:18:12 +0000

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.

By: J-EM-P

J-EM-P — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:50:26 +0000

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.