What Was Your Name?

The older I get, the more I realize what a good thing it is that I didn’t go into politics.

Not only do I have limited number of people skills, I can’t remember names.

This can be a problem when you live in a small town.

It always rattles me whenever I’m in the supermarket and someone runs up to me and throws their arms around me, saying, “Hi, Lisa! I haven’t seen you in ages. How are you?!” and I haven’t got the foggiest idea who I’m speaking to.

Like anyone else, I don’t like to admit my imperfections, so I just go along with it, trying to act equally thrilled to speak to a person I don’t know. This poses a problem. Even though I may momentarily save myself, I compound the problem because I have to go on pretending to know this person I still don’t know whenever I see him or her. And the longer I do this, the more ridiculous it would seem to say after long minutes of rehashing the latest details of my boyfriend, garden, job, etc… “Oh by the way, I’m really sorry to have to admit this, but actually, I don’t know your name.”

Sometimes I do get caught out. One time I was at the store and this girl came up to me and greeted me like we were old friends. I tried to reciprocate, but I think I might have hesitated for half a second too long.

“You don’t know who I am, do you?” she said. “Actually, no,” I admitted.

Sometimes, I try to let someone know right away that I don’t know his/her name.

On rare occasions, someone will insist I know him or her regardless of what I say.

One time, a woman approached me on the road and acted like she knew me.

“ I’m sorry, but I don’t think I remember your name,” I said.

“Oh, of course you do. I read you articles all the time. You know me,” she said.

“Oh…oh, yeah..,” I said, still not knowing.

The problem is I’ve never been good at remembering names. That’s one reason I abhor cocktail parties. I dread it when the host or hostess drags me around the house introducing me to every single person.

“Well, Lisa, let me introduce you to Alex, Mary Jane, Jeff, Jack…..” the host says as I stand there with a frozen smile pasted on my face with names going out of my head just as fast as they’re going in.

“And everyone…this is Lisa.”

Of course, they’re all smiling, because they, unlike me, only have one new name to remember as opposed to 50 new names.

Then, some people even stick out their hands and say “nice to meet you.” I’ve never understood that. How can anyone think it’s nice to meet you when they don’t even know who you are?

I think it sounds much more sincere to say, “Nice to meet you,” after you’ve spoken to someone for a while.

Likewise, I’d rather find out someone’s name after we’ve had a conversation. That way I can determine whether or not I even want to allocate precious brain space to even trying to remember their name.

When I’m not sure what someone’s name is, I often think it’s better to admit that I don’t know it rather than taking a risk and getting it wrong.

People are very sensitive about their names and it can be very hurtful when you call someone by the wrong name. I know it bugs me when people call me Linda or Louise even after I’ve corrected them a million times.

One time I was at the liquor store and someone who I knew relatively well and had actually worked with several times in the past, referred to me as “Julie.” It was such a grave error—not even close to Lisa or Linda or Louise—that I didn’t want to embarrass this person by calling it to his attention. So, I played along and acted like my name was Julie.

That was fine for the one night. But several months down the road, I know I’ll bump into him again and he’ll insist on calling me, “Julie.” It will be doubly embarrassing, because not only will I have to admit that my name’s not Julie, I’ll have to admit that I don’t know what his name is either.

(Readers can e-mail Lisa at lisal@thegrid.net.)