Remembering People's names
Oct 2, 2017 8:03:50 GMT -5
Post by 40oz on Oct 2, 2017 8:03:50 GMT -5
I think the internet has made introductions are very weird. On forums and facebook, everyone has a name tag, so you can casually observe the person, name, profile, and all without them knowing you exist. In real life, it's normal social ettiquette to tell people your name and what you do first before anything, which is fine. But it doesn't feel appropriate to interrupt a naturally flowing conversation to say "everyone pay attention to me for a second, I don't know who any of you are or if I care enough to participate in whatever it is you're talking about, but here's some information about me you might not need to know"
It feels a bit more natural to just chime into a conversation with a joke or a compliment or some other helpful comment to feel out the room a little. If it goes well, sometimes the conversation develops really well and we learn a lot about one another... except each other's names. In such case, as it often happens, one of us has to be excused from the conversation, and they go on to say the awkward "bye.. um... sorry, what was your name, again?" and the person gets really apologetic for not knowing my name before we got so deep into the conversation. I always console the person by telling them that I didn't even introduce myself before we started talking, and that it's no trouble.
Remembering people's names is a known challenge, especially for salespeople who have to meet strangers all the time. It's enough of a challenge that people have developed name remembering techniques, like using a persons name as often as possible within a conversation to drill it into your head (Hi Bryan! Bryan, it's nice to meet you. So what do you do, Bryan?) I've also heard of another technique where you're supposed to create a rhyming nickname for a person, like Dancing Lance or Slim Jim -- without saying it out loud, of course. Still, I do occasionally get anxious about forgetting peoples names, and often I listen to people talk to each other in hopes that their name will come up instead of just singling out the person to tell it to me.
I don't know where this kind of anxiety comes from though. I've never felt concerned that someone I've talked to doesn't already know or still remembers my name. It's not like it's hard to tell someone my single-syllable nickname, and it seems awfully pretentious that I've made such a significant impact on this stranger's life that they should definitely store my name in their memory bank and not dare ask more than once, especially among the other tens of thousand names of people they've probably met and never spoke to again. It seems more fair to save the introduction for last, so once we inevitably exit the conversation with a mutual respect for each other, leave the person with my name so we can continue it another time. Why deliver it in the beginning before we know we should care about each other, then proceed to cloud our short term memory with a polite and fun talk and assume the person will retain my name once it's over?
I'm sure we will see technological advancements in the future that will eliminate this problem in the future, but that's always been a weird observation of mine, ever since I was a child.
It feels a bit more natural to just chime into a conversation with a joke or a compliment or some other helpful comment to feel out the room a little. If it goes well, sometimes the conversation develops really well and we learn a lot about one another... except each other's names. In such case, as it often happens, one of us has to be excused from the conversation, and they go on to say the awkward "bye.. um... sorry, what was your name, again?" and the person gets really apologetic for not knowing my name before we got so deep into the conversation. I always console the person by telling them that I didn't even introduce myself before we started talking, and that it's no trouble.
Remembering people's names is a known challenge, especially for salespeople who have to meet strangers all the time. It's enough of a challenge that people have developed name remembering techniques, like using a persons name as often as possible within a conversation to drill it into your head (Hi Bryan! Bryan, it's nice to meet you. So what do you do, Bryan?) I've also heard of another technique where you're supposed to create a rhyming nickname for a person, like Dancing Lance or Slim Jim -- without saying it out loud, of course. Still, I do occasionally get anxious about forgetting peoples names, and often I listen to people talk to each other in hopes that their name will come up instead of just singling out the person to tell it to me.
I don't know where this kind of anxiety comes from though. I've never felt concerned that someone I've talked to doesn't already know or still remembers my name. It's not like it's hard to tell someone my single-syllable nickname, and it seems awfully pretentious that I've made such a significant impact on this stranger's life that they should definitely store my name in their memory bank and not dare ask more than once, especially among the other tens of thousand names of people they've probably met and never spoke to again. It seems more fair to save the introduction for last, so once we inevitably exit the conversation with a mutual respect for each other, leave the person with my name so we can continue it another time. Why deliver it in the beginning before we know we should care about each other, then proceed to cloud our short term memory with a polite and fun talk and assume the person will retain my name once it's over?
I'm sure we will see technological advancements in the future that will eliminate this problem in the future, but that's always been a weird observation of mine, ever since I was a child.
