Don’t you hate it when run into someone you should know, but you can't remember their name? Or you meet someone new, chat for a few minutes and realize their name has already slipped your mind because your so caught up in the discussion of who's cat did something cuter that day.
How do you remember names? Any good tips or tricks out there?
I consider myself to be a bit of a name wuss and yes, I just came up with that very technical term. What I mean is, I'll be 97% sure of the name of the person in front of me, but then a little voice in my head will say, "Are you really, really sure?" and I second guess myself, continuing the conversation using lots of pronouns. Meanwhile a battle of wits is going on in my head: "Matt? It's Matt! But what if it's Mike???"
I picked up a helpful trick from my parents long ago, a tag-team of sorts. My dad isn’t always great with names so when we'd run into someone who knew my dad, I remember my mom often quickly introducing herself to he/she who could not be named when she'd see that my dad wasn't making the introduction. Jason and I both do this for each other from time to time now. That way, forgotten name introduces themselves and the name forgetter only has to say, "Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't realize you guys hadn't met before..." or something along those lines.
The clip above from House Bunny always makes me laugh. Perhaps I should try that technique...
Here are ten tricks to remember names. Perhaps these are a little more realistic than the House Bunny method...
No comments