I am probably too-easily mortified by embarrassing things I do. Just an observation.
So we’re at Tu Tu Tango in Atlanta. There’s about a dozen of us, but one of us, let’s call him Clark, was coming separately. Seemed he had an old bud in town, and they were going to hook up, then meet us at the restaurant.
We’re seated at the table, it’s noisy, I’m about mid-way along one side, and Clark comes in with his friend. They sit, and Clark is introducing us to him, and the guy stops and stares at me. “Dave? Dave Hill?”
Blink.
“You don’t remember me? High school?”
“Uhhhhhh …”
Okay, I have a notoriously bad memory for faces, and particularly for associating names with faces. Really, really, really bad. Bad enough that I take “compensating” strategies to try to figure out, when someone says, “Just go over and ask Joe-Bob,” which one Joe-Bob (“Damn, that name is familiar”) is. And, if possible, I try to avoid that sort of situation altogether.
“Evan. Evan Green? You don’t remember?”
I feel a hot flush of embarrassment (mercifully, the lighting was murky). What the hell do you say in a case like this? Lie about it? Maybe, in a passing conversation, but I was stuck at the dinner table with this guy. So I was mature enough to instead shake my head and say, “I’m sorry, I’m drawing a blank.”
He stared at me. “I can’t believe you don’t remember me! Red hair? Frizzy out like this?”
Now I’m trying to picture this guy twenty-five years ago, probably (maybe?) thinner, with hair like he describes. He does seem strangely familiar. And I think I knew some guys, at least in passing, who had frizzy red hair. Maybe some guy from Ft Collins, during my several month stint there … “Uh … maybe.”
“I can’t believe you don’t remember me. Man …” He shakes his head, a bit dismayed.
I’m still drawing a blank, though. And I’m feeling really embarrassed, both for the insult to this guy in not remembering him (especially when he remembers me, and, apparently, fondly) and in such a lapse occurring in front of the group.
He laughs. “You remember Theresa?”
“Theresa?”
“The gal with the streak in her hair?”
“Uuuuhhhh … maybe? Yeah, maybe. Rings a bell.” I’m getting a modicum of composure back. Everybody
“draws a blank” at times, and “rings a bell” is a great way to sound like you’re not a total dork. And there were people I hung with at times in high school (all three schools) whose names I barely knew then — theater folk, for example, and in the choir. Bad with names, remember?
Theresa … Theresa … Evan … his face did seem a little familiar …
“So you know him from high school?” Tommy, one of the CIO’s directs, and an old friend of mine, asks from across the table.
“Evidently,” I say, dryly, mockingly skeptical.
“I can’t believe the expression on your face. I’ve never seen you stumped before.”
I laugh with him. Always the best way to deal with something like that.
“No, I mean it.” Tommy turns to another of the CIO’s directs, Rick. “This guy’s got the greatest memory around. He remembers everything.”
Yeah, if it’s Babylon 5 trivia, or some cool thing I once read on BoingBoing, maybe.
“I mean it. Great memory. Never seen him so flustered.”
I shrug.
“Dave?” Evan says from the end of the table.
“Yeah?”
“I’m just kidding you. I don’t really know you.”
My jaw drops.
“Clark here said you were a fun guy, and I thought I’d string you along.”
I laugh. He’d actually done it quite well, and if it weren’t that I’m still, at that point, so mortified, I’d’ve been able to appreciate it better. I wasn’t even embarrassed for having been spoofed; I was still (irrationally) getting over that numbing embarrassment of not having recognized him.
For what it’s worth, Evan did seem like a decent guy, and I wish I’d been sitting down closer to him to chat. I did toss a few comments to him as the evening progressed, “reminiscing” about our days in high school, the time we got stoned in the back of his van, going along with the now-exposed joke like a good sport. And it was fun.
And I’m sure I’ll hear the story of it again, probably from Tommy (or from someone Tommy’s told). Hopefully I’ll laugh more sincerely with it.
I just think it’s interesting that I forgot completely about the anecdote until just now.
Well…
On the plus side, that’s one gag that none of us can play on you now.
;->
Beauty though.
Just great!
Wish we had been there for it.
Thaaaaaanks …
One of my problems is, beyond getting easily flustered in such ways, is that I tend to take things, people, situations, at face value. I’m good at analyzing them after the fact, or speculating when I have a chance to consider things, and when it’s a potential risk (e.g., a scam), I can be appropriately cynical. But in a no-risk, immediate situation, I tend to accept the info given to me and presume its truth.
Ha, ha, ha. 😛
(Cf. to previous discussions about how quickly Margie figures out mysteries and plot twists, while I’m staring at this stuff, fully taken in, unless it’s ridiculous, by plotting. I don’t try to see through it as it’s presented.)
(And isn’t it interesting that, through the power of suggestion and my own uncertainty, I was able, in that brief time, to manufacture a sense of familiarity with the guy’s face? Does that bear a relationship to the phenominon of memory reconstruction in therapy, and some of the research that’s shown how easy it is to reconstruct false memories?)
Anyway …
Dave, like me, you’re something of a Boy Scout even to this day. Because we try to be Trustworthy, we assume other people do too. Because we are fully aware of the fallibility of our own memories and we want to be Loyal to old friends, as well as Helpful, Friendly, and Courteous to everyone, we’re readily willing to believe what someone else says even when our own memory doesn’t back it up.
While I greatly value most of what I learned in the Boy Scouts, I sometimes feel that being a Boy Scout trained me to act in ways that are not always beneficial in the modern world. This case is an example since it seems to me that the combination of traits listed above can easily lead to gullibility. I never did like “Obedient” in the Scout Law, so perhaps a good idea would be to amend the Scout Law by replacing “Obedient” with “Careful” or some other thing that could be interpreted to require a healthy degree of skepticism.
Perhaps “Thoughtful.”
I don’t mind “Obedient” — there are proper venues for obedience (esp. among Scouting-age kids). But blindly, thoughtlessly following any of the Scout Law’s clauses is asking for trouble.
But, yes, my intrinsic Boy Scoutness (I try to be trustworthy and honest, therefore I presume that others do as well) does sometimes make things uncomfortable for me. Though going the opposite route, and presuming that others are all dishonest schnooks doesn’t seem like a very comfortable way of living, either.
“Trust but verify”?