You Must Be (Mumble Mumble)

Like many people, I'm apologetically not that great with names. Odds are, if I'm introduced to someone in some sort of social situation, I'll have forgotten their name by the next time I see them.

And I kind of just figure, well, I'm not that great with names, sorry!

But then I was thinking about it and I realized that in fact, I'm not that great with names because I don't really pay attention to them. Odds are, if I'm introduced to someone, I'm automatically assuming I'm not going to need to know their name anytime in the immediate future, so I'm not even really making an attempt to remember it.

Then when I meet people again, usually I have to be reminded of their names, but after that I remember, because I paid attention the second time.

It's sort of as if I unconsciously decided, somewhere along the line, that unless I see you more than once, your name is irrelevant to me.

I'm not even going to listen to it the first time: you could say "Hi, I'm Morgethern Hanretty the Bold Destroyer of Marmite" and I'd just smile and say "Hi, I'm A'Llyn," and if someone asked me two minutes later "who was that?" I'd have to shrug. Not that great with names, sorry!

But next time I meet you, then I'll listen. Honest.

I must hasten to assure you that it's not that I'm stuck up and think I'm too important to bother with your name. I'm assuming you don't really care about mine either, so we're even. I would never expect you to remember my name if we only met once.

And if you do, well, good for you I guess, but also, you wasted brain cells on that that could have been devoted to important blog posts or something, so I'm not sure about your priorities.

So let's just all agree that we don't care about anyone's name the first time we meet them, unless we're going to be sharing an office or hunting werewolves together or something.

Even then, I'll probably give you a mental nickname like Office Dude or Werewolf Hunting Lady at first. You know, just in case you're eaten by a file cabinet or a werewolf before I really have a chance to get to know you.