If so, does that mean people actually remember a persons name & face after only one encounter?!
If not, why do we pretend they will be upset, and try to hide the fact that we forget an unfamiliar name?
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People get upset if you part your hair wrong. Forgetting a name hasn’t gotten me killed yet but stranger things have happened.
I can remember someone’s name after one meeting but when I can’t it makes me feel awkward. I feel less awkward when 9 times out of 10 they forgot meeting me the first time.
I get relieved. I feel like it gives me an imaginary “get one name wrong” credit.
I have a pretty good memory for faces, just really not for names. I know where and when I met someone but I can’t tell you their name even if we met a bunch of times.
I’ve got shit recognition of faces, poor remembrance of names, but fantastic remembrance and recognition of voices.
It’s a challenge.
Yeah, I can often do voices best too. It’s strange that a little piece of vibrating cartilage can be distinguished so well.
Depends, in my experience.
In High School, I forgot someone’s name, and being autistic and all, I just said outright “You, I forgot your name”. We knew each other and all, but I have an issue associating people’s face to a name. Of course, they were upset, but since they used sarcasm I had a hard time figuring it out (autism) until one of my friends asked me why I said that, and told me it was impolite.
Now I basically explain that I have trouble remembering names, and usually my new friends understand. I guess you just need to say that you usually have trouble with it and you should be fine.
I’d imagine if you literally worked with them, 5 days out of a week… after two weeks, yeah that would be at the very least strange.
It really depends on the context. What was the first encounter? If it was a first date, then yeah, that’s brutal and you suck. If it was a quick intro at a busy event, it’s almost expected.
There’s a bit of a difference between names and faces. Forgetting a name is like forgetting a piece of trivia, but if you meet and speak to somebody and can’t recognize them in a different context (and they look basically the same), it can send a signal that you didn’t find them memorable (and you didn’t lol).
The only time in my life when I found it irritating was my best friend’s roommate who, after hanging out with them in small groups dozens of times for hours each time, still kept introducing herself to me on subsequent visits. I could never figure out if it was drugs, a method of humour or flirting I didn’t understand, or she was really that oblivious to other people.
I was on a third date, and we met an acquaintance of mine. I went to introduce them and blanked. Worse, I went for what I thought I remembered, which ended up close enough to be culturally insensitive. His name was Franz and I said Fritz and he was pretty hurt.
How is that culturally insensitive?
He was Austrian in Germany and those are both very stereotypically Austrian names.
That just seems petty. They both sound like generic German names to me. There even used to be a Kaiser named Fritz. Just recently I was asking someon “was your name James?” reply: “no, Jason”. It was a non-issue
He also had a bit of a chip on his shoulder about it, to be fair.
On the remembering faces topic: I want to tell you about a condition called face blindness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosopagnosia
And people might not even realize they have it.
At work I once told the customer to stop talking during the presentation because I didn’t recognize them as our customer.
I have face blindness. It was an innocent mistake but wow do I regret doing that.
My name has so many variations that I don’t. But I can understand why others do, they don’t want to be associated with either a more common archetype than they are or a less common one, e.g. I have a friend who goes by Lydia, and when people call her Linda, it feels as if she feels the unique implications of her name challenged.
No Dave.
Only if i have fairly consistent interaction with them
I was a low level IT guy many years ago and had worked for the company for about 4 years. There was a sales guy also named Bob that I would help out a few times a year. It was a small company, around 50 employees, and every year at the company Christmas party sales guy Bob would come up to me and say “I don’t think we’ve met, I’m Bob”.
That pissed me off, but it is the only time I can remember where I was upset someone didn’t remember my name.
I don’t normally get upset if people forget my name. But I did get upset once when I met a guy and he forgot me. I was hanging out with a mutual friend and was quickly introduced to this guy at a bar, then the same mutual friend and I were at the same bar when the next time I saw that guy he forgot he met me already but I shook his hand and reintroduced myself, this happened another time at the same bar which annoyed me but I went through the process, then the next time this happened at the same bar I told him we already met several times and refused to shake his hand because I already had shaken it before. He awkwardly laughed it off as I just stared him down, then he eventually left my friend and I to hang out alone.
Our mutual friend thought that was excessive on my part, but that guy sure as fuck remembered me after that.
If he had forgotten my name, that’s understandable. Totally forgetting me several times, fuck off.
No matter how carefully I say my very simple two syllable English name for people, they call me another variation of it. My asshole MIL has called me by the wrong name for over 25 years on purpose because it’s the kind of thing she likes to do. I give up.
I usually find it relieving because I don’t remember their name, either.
Yes! I spend way too much time wishing other people will mess up so I’m not worst in class, haha.
The trick is to call everyone boss, then you don’t need to remember their name.
I had a brain fart when talking to a new coworker and couldn’t remember her name. She was very attractive, and this had clearly never happened to her before. She became very agitated and upset about it. (She wasn’t a b*tch or anything, just unaware of the benefits she got from being pretty.)
I was always nice and respectful to her, but for the rest of our time working together, I continued forgetting her name and it drove her nuts.
I always lead by stating I suck at remembering names, which usually works. Still I understand why some get upset, because they themselves spend a lot of time and energy cramming names. I too cram names if they’re needed in a work function.
