Hard News: Have you met thingy?
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So-o-o pleased it's not just me. Drives my wife mad that I can remember obscure Monty Python sketches from nearly 40 years ago (when I heard them) and even more obscure 60's song lyrics, plus I'm pretty good at identifying a song within the first 2-4 measures, but I can't remember who people are. I know I know their faces but...
As soon as I hear the name I'll remember everything I know about them. But I can't make that connection from the face alone, mostly.
Mr Llewellyn will tell you that I called him Steve for literally years befor he very politely corrected me at the pictures one night. I have no idea how I made that connection...
If I'm unsure of the name I used to sort of mumble something (still do on occasion) but I'm getting much better at saying "sorry, it's the ME - I know I know you but I can't remember your name" which usually works.
Of course, none of us can ever meet up in public now, as we all know we can't remember each other :-D
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Pretty good with names.
Pretty good with faces.
Really crap at connecting the correct name to the face.
But mostly I think the problem is I am not that worried about it, I don't mind looking like a dick because I have to ask someone's name - again.
Oh and really really bad at putting actors names to faces in movies and I know it's because I'm not interested in the actor at all, it's the character I'm interested in. For me, the better the actor the less likely I am to know who they are in real life.
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68 out of 72 in the first one and 30 out of thirty in the famous faces one.
So WTF goes wrong with live people???
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PS I can haz a blog now
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It's not the shouty aspect of the ACT billboards that causes me to hum "mmmmmm", they are billboards after all; it's the spelling. This is undoubtedly casting stones in glasshouses territory. However to misspell in big bold letters on printed billboards one policy you think will ruin the world (emmisions) may be regarded as a misfortune; to misspell both (tolerence) looks like carelessness ...
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Mr Llewellyn will tell you that I called him Steve
I still get people calling me Alistair - I presume my old varsity mate Alistair Underwood still has people call him Andrew :)
PS - we (all the Mr Llewellyns who post here) have an uncle called Steve.
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it's the spelling
What's the bet that the clerk who used to send incomprehensible Parliamentary Questions from the Office of Muriel Newman is now tasked with drafting the campaign billboards.
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This is a little bit sad, but when I was 11, I realised that I was so rubbish at remembering people's names that I decided to give up calling people by their name.
So now I have many conversations like this:
Person: Hi, Robyn!
Me: Hi. -
There are interesting reflections on this kind of thing in a couple of books by people with autism I have just read. As adults with autism they have analysed what makes them different from other people, including not recognising people. Temple Grandin's 'The way I see it' - is just that, on a variety of topics. John Elder Robison is the brother of writer Augusten Burroughs. His book is called 'Look me in the eye' - something he has never been able to do and was punished, or socially ostracised for. Among other things he was the creative genius behind the special effects used by Kiss, including the flaming guitars. He says as his social skills developed his amazing creativity energy diminished.
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It took me about an hour to recall his name but just a few minutes to find the reference.
Page 152 Gordon McLauchlan’s biography A Life’s Sentences.
“Most of the best writers have rich vocabularies, not the least that remarkable children’s writer Margaret Mahy. I was having breakfast with her some years ago during a writer’s conference in Dunedin, telling her a story but unable to recall a pertinent name. I said ‘I have trouble remembering names’
‘Age’ she said.
‘No I’ve always had it. When I was doing regular television interviews, I would write down names of guests and put the list on the desk in front of me. Even though they may have been famous, I lived in fear of forgetting their names. I was playing Trivial Pursuit once and the answer to a question was Baden-Powell. I could remember the minutiae of his life and times but couldn’t bring up his name. I mimed his biography for an answer and still the name wouldn’t come.Ah’ she said, ‘onomastic aphasia’.
A couple of years later I saw her again and said, Funny, eh, I can remember “onomastic aphasia” easily, all the time, but what’s your name again?’ .
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My problem is that I confuse people's names. I know that I do it, so when I see Jane, whom I always wrongly call Joan, I make a special effort to trap "Joan" and say "Jane".
Unfortunately, some part of my brain then learns a new rule "whenever you see the J person, your natural instinct for her name is wrong." So then I start to say the right name and then correct myself and clearly and confidently say the wrong one.
So then I learn a new rule to do the opposite of the "flip names" rule, but the "flip names rule" says to do the opposite of what I think is the correct name, and my brain locks up in an infinite loop until the other person starts talking to me. It's like having your own personal brain version of Abort, Retry, Fail...
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<absolute wankery>I think my problem is that everyone remembers me because I stand out, but most people are just ordinary and when you're as popular and cool as me, it's very very hard to remember all the little people</wankery>
Also, I tend to meet people in loud drinking situations and I might not always catch their name first off, and don't want to ask for it again after we've been talking for ages. I like tags on photos on Facebook, that helps.
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i think we should all just start calling people "tiger".
it could be the main marker of Brown's Syndrome.
party host: "hi che"
person with Brown's Syndrome: "hey there tiger' <kapow fingers>
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So now I have many conversations like this:
Person: Hi, Robyn!
Me: Hi.Oh god, me too, even with people I should be able to greet by name. Although tend to go for "Hi!" rather than "Hi."
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party host: "hi che"
person with Brown's Syndrome: "hey there tiger' <kapow fingers>
Or..
Party Host: Mate,
Brown Syndrome: Mate. -
My friend Martin can never remember names so he just makes one up, and says, Hello, Alan, how are things going?. Afterwards when I ask who that was he claims he has no idea what what their real name is, even though he has met them several times. But, he says,he looked like an Alan. He says they can correct him if it bothers them.
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__So now I have many conversations like this:
Person: Hi, Robyn!
Me: Hi.__Oh god, me too
Me three. Originally it was a covering mechanism, but these days I just find calling someone by their first name weird for some reason. Unless I actually need to call someone by their name (usually to get their attention), I don't -- it feels kind of patronising or overly familiar to me.
I'm assuming that I've just conditioned myself to find using someone's first name abnormal, but when I see someone write "Well, Josh, what I think is that..." online, my initial reaction is that they're being condescending, even though on a forum like this you often have to make it explicit who your comments are directed at.
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Oh, and re: calling people "tiger", don't forget to spice it up with a bit of variety, just to keep people guessing:
"Hey there, tiger!"
"Hey there, sport!"
"Hey there, champ!"
"Hey there, Hitler!"
No, wait - not that last one.
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Oh say, what do you guys do when someone you don't know (or don't recognise perhaps) taps you on Facebook?
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"Hey there, Hitler!"
No, wait - not that last one.
If in doubt I always use "Rumpelstiltskin".
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That just fits you so well, Steve
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I'm semi-reasonable at remembering names but I'm very afraid to get it wrong so I'll often stand in paralyzed silence in front of someone because I'm only 90% sure they're called Joan.
Most of the time if I'm contacted by someone I don't think I know on Facebook it's because I never knew their real name and a message along the lines of "I think I know you by some other name" tends to clear things up nicely.
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I have come to the conclusion that when someone I know addresses me with a non-name specific greeting ("Oh, hi!") they can't remember my name. If I'm in a good mood I remind them who I am. If I'm not, I let them squirm.
I knew a guy whose substitute generic term was "rooter" for men and "chick" for women. e.g. "Gidday, rooter!"
Despite this he was actually a good bloke and a very successful businessman.
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I knew a guy whose substitute generic term was "rooter" for men and "chick" for women. e.g. "Gidday, rooter!"
Bob Clarkson?
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My mother was so bad at calling me and my siblings (one brother, one sister) each other's names, that she gave up and just started calling us all 'Fred".
So all three of us respond to Fred. Collectively we're "the Freds". So over the weekend you possibly could have heard a conversation in my parent's kitchen along the lines of "Can you go see if the Freds want red or white wine with dinner?".
Old (middle when it started if the truth be told) age. Very sad.
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