Wednesday, July 27, 2011

The only advice column I will ever write. Probably.

I saw something today on someone's blog about introducing people. And I have a little tip for those of you who have trouble remembering people's names and often have a wingman.

When I was in college, Matt and I were inseparable. Matt is adored by many a male and female and is also horrible at remembering people's names. Without fail, his adoring fans would approach him wherever we were and he would hardly ever know who they were even if they thought Matt was a close friend. So we came up with a system. If he didn't immediately say: "{George}, this is Stephanie, Stephanie this is {George}" upon seeing them, I would take this as a signal that he had no idea what this person's name was and I would say:

"Hi. I'm Stephanie. What's your name?" Bingo. We both got the name without making Matt look like a forgetful poop. Sometimes I would add "How do you know Matt?"

I've even started applying this in my own day to day life. If I am with a friend who runs into someone and I am not introduced immediately, I will take it upon myself to go through the exercise mentioned above. It is always awkward when you are with someone who doesn't introduce you to their friends.

And now you know.

2 comments:

Piper said...

Perfection! My husband (also a Matt) is terrible with names. This is a GREAT tip. I will use it so he can stop having to fumble around with that terrible name recall. Thanks!

Margie Quilter said...

I always hope people will do that for me... I'm pretty bad with names 3/4ths of the time too :)