5 ways to get away with forgetting who somebody is
There’s nothing worse. You walk into the work/house/dinner party and you make eye contact with someone. They greet you warmly. You have no way of knowing if this is a friendly person or if it’s someone you’ve met before. You could’ve had a deep meaningful conversation with them in recent times; and now it looks like you’ve completely forgotten them. And if there’s one thing humans do not appreciate, it’s feeling like they’re forgettable.
But it’s hard to remember everyone and some of us are bad with names AND faces. So how do you find out if you’ve met them before without hurting their feels?
Don’t worry. We got u.
1. Assume you’ve met them before and take the ‘loser’ bullet
The most noble way to handle the situation is to take the loser bullet. i.e. you give them a warm smile back and you say “We’ve met before, haven’t we?” Best case scenario they say “Yes we met at Russian Dave’s house last weekend,” Then you breathe a sigh of relief and inwardly congratulate your smoothness.
Worst case scenario they look confused and say “I don’t think so…” Then they’ll think they’re the one who’s forgotten you. But we know the truth.
2. Begin a neutral conversation
Just say “Hi! How are you?” Then, hopefully, through this conversation you’ll be able to gauge if you’ve met them before. Worst case scenario you just end up having a conversation with a random person you’ve never met before. Who knows, they might be the love of your life.
3. Go down the Doppelgänger route
Say “You look familiar” Or “I recognise you.” They will then say “Yes we met at Portuguese Joe’s house last weekend” Or they will say “Oh really? I’m not sure where from.” And then just go straight in with your standard introduction and sleep soundly that night knowing that nobody thinks you’re a forgetful, self-absorbed bell-end.
4. You have definitely met before and they know your name but you’ve forgotten theirs
This is bad. They remember you and your name and you don’t remember them or their name. Shit. This is where we get deep into the territory of looking like a total cock who doesn’t care about anyone. Don’t worry, here’s what you do.
You say “Hey! How are you?” Then (this is genius) as you speak to them slowly edge towards someone you do know (let’s call them Mary). Then you say “This is Mary!” And then the mysterious stranger will say “Hi Mary I’m Irish Norman.” Problem fuckin’ solved.
5. You are one of those people that likes it when people know who you are but you don’t know who they are
Statistically speaking a small percentage of people reading this will be that person. The one who’s eyes light up when you say “We’ve met before, haven’t we?” With a sneer dripping in pity they look you slowly up and down, spending a good 45 seconds writhing in pleasure at the fact that you know who they are and they don’t know who you are. Until finally they say with a snort of contempt “Errrrmm….. No?”
If you are one of these people this article will be of no interest to you. Maybe you even pretend you’ve forgotten someone when you actually remember them. In which case, none of the above apply to you. Oh and P.S: You’re the worst.
