I
was walking through the mall one day when I heard my name being called by an
unfamiliar voice. I turned around and saw this guy walking towards me with a
big smile, his hand extended. I shook it and realized, to my embarrassment,
that he knew me quite well, and that I couldn't remember him at all.
You
know how there are people who are bad at names and good at remembering faces?
Or who are bad at faces but good at remembering names? Well, I'm neither. I'm
one of those unlucky bastards who are bad at both. Which is hell for someone as
socially awkward as I am. I'm already bad at small talk, why would the universe
add the fact that I had to fake-know someone into that equation?
This
situation is a regular occurrence in my life. I would meet someone whose name
and face I didn't know or recognize, but who would talk to me with such obvious
familiarity that I knew I was going to hurt his feelings if I suddenly asked
how I knew him. So, as confrontation-averse as I am, I would usually stand
there hoping the conversation would end soon, and that whomever I was talking
to at the moment would never realize I was only fake-knowing him.
This
is a mistake. Here's why: there is a small window of opportunity where one
person can still ask another person his name, and how they know each other,
without being rude. It's definitely in the first five minutes of the
conversation. After 20 mins of talking, it's just weird, but still doable.
After the initial conversation, the window is gone. The next conversation will
not only be weird, but if you ask him his name, he will probably feel
humiliated and awkward, and you will be a jackass.
Which
is why I now have countless acquaintances who I keep bumping into whose names I
still don't know, but who I recognize now because I keep remembering them as
the people whose names I can't remember. I actually have several
"friends" I fake-know, and who I sincerely hope never ever realize
I've been fake knowing all this time. Sometimes I give them fake names in my
head. "Oh my god, it's orange-shirt guy. I need to act like I'm looking
for something really important in my bag so that it seems like I didn't really
ignore him; I was just busy looking for that something important in my bag that
may or may not be able cure the world of cancer."
So,
going back to the anecdote, there I was, feeling like a fool, hoping the
conversation would end soon before he realized I was really just faking my way
through his stories. I figured I could still give him a couple of minutes
before I excused myself to go.
That
was, until my friend came along and joined us. And of course the polite thing
to do in that situation is to introduce them, and I would have wanted to do
that, except I couldn't because you can't introduce your friend to a
(practically) nameless stranger, and not if the stranger assumed he wasn't a
stranger in the first place.
So a
moment of silence. Awkward, awkward silence. I stood there grinning like an
idiot because I knew both of them were expecting me to introduce them to each
other. More silence. I decided, fuck it, let's do this.
"Hey,
this is my friend Mike," I said. Period. Finito. I knew there was a second
half to it, but really, I couldn't just pick a name out of a hat right? I mean
I could, but that would be rude. "Patrick, your name is Patrick? Are you
sure? You look like a Peter to me," I might have said.
Another
heartbeat of silence. Then the guy looked at me, smiled sheepishly, and
introduced himself to my friend. I smiled back, and tried to make my face look
like I knew his name all that time, but that I only didn't know how to make
proper introductions. Which I realized would also make me look like an idiot.
There was no winning this thing.
Photo
taken here.
