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How to remember people’s names
According to my wife. Blame her if this method doesn’t work. I’m yet to try it.
The other day I wrote about being smart.
Not someone else being smart, but me. Yes, I am smart. But I’m dumb shit when it comes to remembering people’s names. If I ever meet you — you, reading this right now — I’ll forget your name immediately after you tell me what it is. My mind goes blank, kind of. It must be some genetic thing.
The good thing is that I’ve learned to be confident and upfront about it. I can talk to someone for an hour and then ask them to remind me their name, with a smile on my face, apologizing for being so dumb.
But sometimes the problem is extreme. I become friendly with someone — say some parent at my kid’s sporting activity — and keep socializing with them without remembering their name. As time passes, it’s too awkward to ask someone to remind me their name. Day after day I greet them with some awkward mumbling, hoping that my smile makes up for my stupidity.
My wife doesn’t have this problem. She has a group of kids she coaches tennis and fitness so she can’t NOT remember the names of who’s standing in front of her, and it’s not just the kids but also their parents.
