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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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.
Bro I can’t remember a name for anything, so I just use a filler, like “bro”.
One time, decades ago, I was drunk at a house party and kept calling a woman by the wrong name. Eventually her friend got really mad at me. I have no idea why I couldn’t remember her real name.
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.
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.
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.
Some people do get upset; some people don’t.
The easily upset don’t—or refuse to—understand that 1) some of us have brains that just don’t remember people’s names very well, and that 2) they should get over themselves.
I would go as far to say that most ‘peoples brains’ dont remember new names well, unless there is a strong emotion tied to the meeting of a new person (hate, fear, infatuation, etc) then its easy to forget what someone said by the time you have made some introductory small talk and moved on to a conversation topic or had to break off the conversation and go elsewhere.
I find i either have to have somebody else say their name a lot for it to stick or i mentally break off from the conversation when i can get away with it and in mind find a way of remembering their name with a trick like associating it with a similar sounding word, or a famous actor with the same/similar name, etc.
The trick is to call everyone boss, then you don’t need to remember their name.
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.
No Dave.
I always preface with the fact I’m bad at names. I forget names of coworkers I’ve spent years with. Even friend’s names sometimes. In fact, I does not even have to be a person or animal’s name, jus the name of something. Places, objects, locations, etc. I frequent a park that has sentimental value and I couldn’t tell you the name off the top of my head.
A friend of mine has a joke that I always get the letter wrong. Usually I’ll say “I think it starts with [letter]” and most times it’s incorrect.
Usually there are ways around it since I’ve been told it’s rude, but nobody has ever outwardly told me they were unhappy I’ve forgotten. Typically they will notice I forget other names before it becomes a problem with them.
Question’s been covered by others here, but I just wanna pitch in with I can’t remeber names OR faces. Imagine how awful I feel when someone starts talking to me like they know me and I don’t recofnize them at all lmao
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.
me hearing a person’s name once during being introduced
me… minutes later realizing that there is just a blank spot in my memory where there name should be
me… waiting for months hoping that somebody uses their name around me in a context that attaches a name to that person because I’m too much of a coward to ask the person directly
Yes. If I forgot someone’s name after meeting them it would be like me saying “you’re not important enough to me to remember your name.” It’s especially insulting when you think about how many people you meet once and do remember their name.
It’s especially insulting when you think about how many people you meet once and do remember their name.
What if that number is zero?
People definitely get upset when you use the wrong name. —I don’t
I think most ppl are fine with it if it is only once and you seem genuinely sad about it. I am fine with ppl forgetting we even met I am even playing along pretending it is the first time we meet, so far has it only been ppl I met maybe twice in my life(except one person). I have only met one person who actually got sad when I forgot her name. She asked if I was not as happy as she was to see me… That hurt, I remembered her tho! But not her name.
I think it is worse when I have to introduce myself everytime we meet and it has been over 3 times… One dude he never remembered me until the 5th time then he said "heey we have met before right?! " he even looked genuinely happy and I felt “finally we can stop pretending” but then the next time we met he introduced him self again… I remember you Felix!
