By Tinky Ningombam
I am always bad with names. I have been plagued by this rather irritating social handicap. My nonsensical inability to recall names and associate them to faces. Though in my defense, I am sure everyone deals with this some time or the other. We often forget people who we do not meet for a very long time or people who we are not interested in. My problem extends to people who I thought were interesting. That is when I saw my problem as indeed a problem not something that I feigned for personal fancies.
We are visual creatures. It takes us less time to recall an object by sight than by name. Moreover, ever since I was a young girl, I have always been attracted to interesting visuals. In the passing years, I have discovered that I am part of that certain group of people who easily forget people`™s names. But like most of the incorrigible pampered lot, the only ones that I seem to remember are the people from the past that are most obnoxious, weird or the visually fascinating kind.
So does this mean that who-so ever that I forget are plain and boring? I don`™t know.
And people who are with me on this, will understand my plight. Ever more so when I say that this has not been very good for me, of course, especially in my social life. Many uncomfortable situations have befallen on me. One particularly embarrassing one happened just a couple of months ago.
A dear acquaintance of mine and her group of friends had met me. I, being the host, had to play the part to introduce my long-lost friend to the group and I introduced her by the wrong name. And instead of playing dumb and moving on, she corrected me and said that, that was definitely not what she was called. If ever you have to invent time machines, those are to be for times like these. To save you from the embarrassment of introducing your friend by the wrong name. I would have found it offensive if someone did that to me. Considering how self-important and highly I think of myself. That girl deserves nothing less. And even as I write this, I cannot for the life of me, remember what her name is, again.
Why do we forget names? Are there some valid explanations? Why is it so hard to keep up? Apparently there are a few explanations for these. People fail to correlate a face to a name because of one or few of the following things.
A. We forget a name because we are not interested in them. Because we think that the person is inconsequential and will not be connected to us at all in the future.
B. Because at the time of introduction, we try too hard to focus on something about the person or on something else in our mind entirely that our attention to the name becomes unimportant
C. Our short term memory is indeed very short or we suffer from a brain disorder
But I mustn`t joke. A brain disorder is no laughing matter. Because I was thinking about this. And also because I was bored and I like to surf the net for completely random things, I found and read of what is called face blindness. Something that you wouldn`t want to even dream of having. Our momentary memory lapses are nothing in comparison to this brain disorder which doesn`t allow facial recognition. My sympathies for the victims of it.
Coming back to our ordeal. How do we deal with this, you ask? How do we get past these deplorable character suicides and public embarrassments of forgetting people`™s names? There are apparently quite a few tricks to learn. All is not lost. This is not a premature attack of dementia yet. I have tried and tested some for your benefit. And it does work, much to my relief. I shall leave you with those.
– Because of the fact that most of the time, we do not remember names because we do not pay attention to that person, we can try to associate the name to a certain thing or activity or object or a facial feature.
– Repeating the name about 5 to six times when introduced helps. This makes it easier for our brain to get used to the face and the name relation. So when you are introduced to Bob, say `“ `So Bob, how was your day?` `It is lovely to have met you Bob` ` Have a good day to you too Bob` It might seem a little weird at first and he might think you are a little crazy if you use his names more than 10 times in 10 minutes. But do go on, if need be.
– Writing it down helps. But this might not be practical in some situations. It can also be a little creepy for the other person if she knows you are indeed writing the names down. Also, if you are introduced without a pen and a paper in your hand, you shouldn`™t go asking for it.
– Make a small limerick or a poem with the person`™s name. If not so creative, use rhyming words. Look at the person closely and hum it silently `Bob wants to shop`, `Bob likes to rob` `Bob is in a mob`. Just don`™t say it aloud in front of him.
– Or do what one of my friend did. Call every girl that he met as `Nanao` This might not work at your workplace but what the heck, it is definitely better than calling someone `oye`.