Please Stop Pretending Like We’ve Never Met Before
By Thoughtis
You know those people you’ve met a handful of times at social gatherings and each time they pretend that they’ve never met you before? Yeah, those people suck. They extend their hand to say, “Oh my god, hi. So nice to meet you. What’s your name?” and you reply with, “Um, we’ve actually met a few times. My name’s blah-blah.” And then they feign embarrassment and start to profusely apologize. “Oh, right. Of course! I’m so sorry. I remember you, duh!” Um seriously, what is up with these people? I’m inclined to think that most of them doremember you and this is just their passive aggressive way of telling you that you’re not worth saving space in their memory bank for. In which case, my name is Aura Banana Shame Spiral Virgo Princess and you can go screw yourself.
l’ll be the first to admit that I have trouble recognizing faces. It’s an embarrassing problem that I’ve had for as long as I can remember and it makes me genuinely worry if I’ve had some undiagnosed head trauma in the past. I mean, it goes above and beyond being forgetful. In fact just the other day I ran into Kat George at the movies—someone whose face I know very well—and I didn’t recognize her at first. She came up to me with that cute Australian accent of hers and said, “Hello, RYAN O’CONNELL!” My brain started doing cartwheels trying to figure out who this cute Aussie chick was. Kat could tell I had no idea who she was so she was like, “Um, it’s Kat George.” I was so embarrassed that I actually considered lying to her about being stoned but she was with her parents and I figured that would be weird.
There was a time that was even more cringeworthy than the Kat incident. A few months ago I went to a bar with Stephanie Georgopulos and introduced myself to a bunch of new people. After what seemed like ten minutes of introductions, I turned to Stephanie and actually said, “Hi, my name’s Ryan. Nice to meet you. What’s your name?” I MEAN, ARE YOU KIDDING? I’m shaming so hard just even typing it out. How did I fail to register Stephanie’s face?! Stephanie honestly must’ve thought I was on acid because she was like, “Um, we just walked here together?” I seriously need a brain like the one in The Terminator movies where everyone’s face comes with a mini-bio because mine is clearly broken.
Even though my memory is clearly defected, I know that I’m in the minority. So to the people I’ve met countless times, screw you for pretending to not know who I am. You’re allowed to forget the second time and maybe even the third time if both of our prior interactions were boozy, but you’re not allowed to not remember me after that. You just know that it’s, more often than not, some stupid power play. Like, “Oh, I repress you every time we meet so I forget who you are.” Um, no. This is not that Drew Barrymore rom-com when she had amnesia. Your mind is in mint condition. It’s your nasty personality that needs some work.
Has anyone called someone out before for not remembering who they were? I usually just silently fume in the moment and vow to write a blog post about it, but I would love to actually be like, “Um, you know who I am, diva. Stop pretending like you don’t.” It would feel so good, right? Maybe I will the next time it happens. WATCH OUT.