I remember you – sort of
The new year is almost here and it’s a time for new beginnings and creating better habits. So, I have a request for all of us:
Can we drop the “Do you remember me” challenge?
Asking me to remember anything is a tall task. A lot of people think that, due to my line of work, I can identify a song within the first note. Far from it. Most often, I’ll sit and listen until I get frustrated enough to Shazam the song and then go “Oh, of course! That’s right…I knew that.”
The same thing happens with people.
It happened to me, in fact, over the weekend. I was working an event and a familiar face walked up and just as I’m trying to pull their identity from my over-crowded memory, they asked the dreaded question.
“Hey! You remember me?”
The unspoken answer to the familiar face’s question is “No. Had I remembered you, I’d have started with ‘Hey Billy Bob!’” But that’s never said. It comes off as rude. What usually comes next is a long, excruciating moment as I scour the depths of my brain looking for any scrap of identifying evidence. The problem is, the more I scan my memory, the further the identity of this person drifts and, unfortunately, there’s no Shazam for people’s faces.
It’s probably the thing I hate most about myself. My memory is absolutely the worst. I like to remember everyone, and I sincerely try, but my brain often is on its own journey and recalling names just isn’t along for the ride.
For the person in question, they ended up being someone from high school. We didn’t exactly hang out back then so that didn’t help. Also, I have been actively blocking many of my high school memories for the past 30 years, so this little episode was doomed from the start.
It doesn’t have to be this way. I had the best exchange recently with someone I’ve known for a very long time. However, we haven’t seen each other in probably six or more years. As soon as I saw her face, I knew who she was, but I forgot her name. I don’t know if she saw it on my face or if she was also letting me know that she couldn’t remember my name either because as we shared that moment of awkward recognition, she immediately said her name and I gave mine in return. Crisis averted.
We later laughed about it and then tried to remember how we knew each other in the first place. I met her years ago at some event I was DJing. In fact, I later DJed her wedding.
That part doesn’t help.
I meet lots of people through both of my jobs so the opportunity for forgetting a name is abundant. I’ve met a lot of people who say they have the same issue. That makes me feel a little better, but I’m still working on it. In the meantime, can we abandon the pop quiz and just reintroduce ourselves? Chances are, yes, I do remember you, I might just need a little nudge in the hippocampus.
Or Shazam.