I Love Humankind, But I’m Not All That Interested in Actual People
I used to live in an apartment with a broken intercom. Everything else about the apartment was great, but the manager, Erma, stubbornly refused to acknowledge that when someone buzzed your apartment and you pressed the “Talk” button to find out who it was, the only thing either person could hear was “mumble mumble mumble SQUAWK!” Early on in my tenancy there, being unaware that every other person in the building had already broached the subject with Erma, I mentioned that the intercom wasn’t working. She seemed very concerned and wanted to test it out, so she decided to go outside and buzz my apartment.
BUZZZZZZZ!
I pressed the Talk button. “Yes?”
“Mumble mumble mumble SQUAWK!”
“I can’t hear you.”
“Mumble mumble mumble SQUAWK!”
“I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”
“Mumble mumble mumble SQUAWK!”
“I AM GOING TO BUZZ YOU IN NOW!”
“Mumble mumble mum ….” BUZZZZZ!
She appeared at my door a few moments later. “It seems to be working fine!” she cheerfully informed me.
“No. See, I couldn’t hear you.”
“You couldn’t? That’s funny. I could hear you. I know! I’ll wait here and you go outside and buzz me.”
I could already see how this was going to go, but farce is nothing if you’re not willing to commit. So I trudged outside, leaving Erma alone to wait and maybe look through my mail.
BUZZZZZZ!
“Mumble mumble mumble SQUAWK!”
“I can’t hear you.”
“Mumble mumble mumble SQUAWK!”
“I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”
“Mumble mumble mumble SQUAWK!”
“COULD YOU BUZZ ME IN NOW? I FORGOT MY KEYS IN THE APARTMENT!”
“Mumble mumble mumble SQUAWK!”
“BUZZ ME IN!”
“Mumble mumble mumble SQUAWK!”
“BUUUUZZZZZ MEEEEEEE IIIIIIN!”
Fortunately, another tenant arrived, helpfully informed me that the intercom had been broken for years, and unlocked the front door so I could get into the building. When I returned to my apartment, Erma was quite happy to see me.
“Well! I guess whatever was wrong with it fixed itself!”
“I couldn’t hear you.”
“Huh. I could hear you just fine. Maybe we should check it again.”
“NO! I think it works now! Thank you for stopping by.”
This was less of a problem in the winter. I could lean out my living room window and see the left rear quadrant of the head of whoever was buzzing me. If it looked like the left rear quadrant of a head belonging to a person that I knew, I could feel confident about buzzing them in. In the spring and summer, however, the trees were full of leaves, and I couldn’t see a thing. After a couple of months of being unable to hear and see who was standing at the front door, I decided to do what everyone else in the building had long since been doing, which was that whenever anyone buzzed my apartment, I would buzz them right into the building and hope that it wasn’t either a burglar or a Jehovah’s Witness.
I mention this only because an analogous situation has arisen with regard to my ability to recognize people I may or may not have seen before. Now, I have always been extremely good with faces, almost freakishly so, and I believe this is because it’s my psyche compensating for the fact that I am constitutionally incapable of retaining any new person’s name for more than 0.7 seconds. When people tell me their names, what I hear is, “mumble mumble mumble SQUAWK!” I do not even like to think about how many conversations I’ve had that have run along the following lines:
Person: Hello, I am John Smith.
Me: Nice to meet you, Joaquin.
Person: John. John Smith.
Me: Of course, how silly of me. It’s very nice to meet you, Victor.
On the other hand, I am also likely to run into this person many years later and have this conversation:
Me: Aren’t you …?
Person: (heavy sigh) John Smith
Me: Yes! George Robertson! We met many years ago. You were wearing a blue shirt and it was a Tuesday. So nice to see you again, Stanley!
Person: I hate you so much.
I don’t know why this is. Perhaps I subconsciously feel that unless I’m going to be forced to interact with a person on a semi-regular basis, there’s no need to commit my limited memory resources to learning his or her name, when I could be using those resources to remember when to double down and when to stick on 12 in Blackjack. On the other hand, I have a robust enough survival mechanism that I need to remember faces in order to determine, upon seeing a familiar face approaching, whether or not I should cross the street.
In any event, on remembering faces I have been stellar. An Olympian of face recognition. I have been known to spot a person, remember that I saw him once in 1983, let out a shriek, and then run. Recently, however, this ability seems to have gone into the same crapper that currently houses my name-remembering skills and the useless voices of countless UPS and FedEx delivery people who once stood outside an apartment building in Alameda, California, yelling, “I HAVE A PACKAGE FOR YOU! YOU NEED TO SIGN FOR IT! LET ME IN!”
About five years ago, I discovered that a childhood friend of mine lives a couple of blocks away from me. I see him around the neighborhood all the time and we often wave happily in passing or sometimes stop and chat. Then a couple of weeks ago, we were both in the post office and he breezed past me with a “hey!” To which I offered the cordial but noncommital, “how you doing” that so clearly indicated that I thought he was some random guy saying hi. So he stopped and said, “It’s Joe. Stalin.”1 Now, I think I knew it was him, but I was kind of engrossed in sending a telepathic message to the postal employees to open up a second window so I could move two inches forward in the line some time before Thanksgiving. On the other hand, he looked weird and different, so I don’t know.
The day after that, I was walking past the golf course and just as a man passed me, he said, “hi, flurrious.”1 I turned and looked at him for about three years, so he took off his sunglasses. Nope. Still nothing. “It’s me, Manuel Noriega.”1 “Oh hey!” I exclaimed. No really. I exclaimed it. Because once he said that, I realized that it was indeed Manuel, who I probably should have recognized, seeing as how we went to the same schools from kindergarten through twelfth grade and, except for the fact that he no longer has the world’s second largest perm,2 he looks exactly the same. We stared at each other awkwardly for a few seconds, realized that even though we used to know each other, we were never particularly friends or anything, and then just turned and walked away. It was a special moment.
But the point is, ordinarily I would have recognized both of those guys immediately. I don’t know why I didn’t, but I am crossing my fingers and hoping that my head is just temporarily full of leaves and other summer foliage, rather than it being something serious, like, say, a tumor. I am also crossing my fingers and hoping that crossing my fingers will be as effective as a CT scan.
In the meantime, I have begun to employ the personal equivalent of buzzing everyone in. If someone waves to me, I wave back like we’re besties. Earlier today, a woman in a passing car honked and waved and before I could stop myself from waving back, I recognized her and realized that I dislike her. Had I not been returning waves so carelessly, I would have given her the blank stare of, “I’m sorry, do I know you?” So clearly, there are some flaws in my new system that need to be worked out at some point before next spring, when the trees start to bloom again.
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1Some names may have been changed.
2I am far too modest to say who had the world’s first largest perm.
I think it’s just a natural function of aging, this difficulty with names and/or faces. I hope that’s the case, because I’ve always been really good with names…but more and more I’m having to pound myself in the head (figuratively) repeatedly until the name pops out. It’s aggravating, and I’m trying very hard to convince myself that it’s not early-onset Alzheimers/brain tumor/random neurological disorder. Gah.
I ruled out early-onset Alzheimer’s because then I would remember people from when I was young, but forget things like why there is food currently in my mouth.
Ugh! This blog just keeps reminding me that I am o-l-d and are just going to get older. And it will suck.
On a less depressing note- have you seen the “The American Life” movie- or heard the “Jackie O is waving at me” segment? Because this- is in your future if you keep up with your new plan
There are probably good things about getting old, but I think they involve things like grandchildren and golden anniversary parties, so I’m SOL in that regard.
I haven’t heard of The American Life, but the Jackie O thing is intriguing. Mainly because I’m just making it up in my head and it’s zombie Jackie O waving at me from the beyond.
See? This is another reason not to know anybody.
My astigmatism is to the point where I can’t see faces from a distance, so I rely on recognizing a person’s general gestalt. I have no idea how many strangers I have waved at who have waved back. Maybe even you?
Although I am now in the love with the phrase, “recognizing a person’s general gestalt,” it doesn’t really apply in my case. I can see people, but I generally try to encourage them not to interact with me in any way. I sense this “wave at everyone” thing is on its last legs.
You keep taunting me with this perm thing, yet never post any photos. I demand a REFUND!
Oh, that money was for a giant perm photo? Then why did you keep asking about my Toyota?
I always think I’m paying attention when someone tells me their name, and then I realize shortly thereafter that my mind decided halfway through the “Hi, I’m so-and-so” sentence to chase some flitting, yet totally non-existent shiny mental object. This can be frustrating for a teacher who has to learn 15-20 new faces each semester. :-O
When I used to do trial work, jury selection was a nightmare for me. When you’re questioning the prospective jurors you have to do it in a somewhat scattershot way, bouncing around from person to person, which requires you to remember what that person already told you. I could do that just fine; I just could never remember their names. “And where do you store these hunting guns, Mr. ….. mmmmfsrsl?” Early on, I learned to dispense with names and just look at them meaningfully.
I’m glad that I’m not the only one who’s horrible with names. My long term memory is phenominal, but I WILL forget your name 10 seconds after you’ve said it. Then somehow I will remember it a month later. Go figure.
Hubby, on the other hand, remembers no one’s name for ANY period of time. He prefers to describe people in ways like “That one teacher we didn’t like at school.” The only thing sadder than the fact that he describes people this way is the fact that I always know who he’s talking about.
My mom and I both do this. We have little nicknames for everyone, which I didn’t even realize until my brother pointed it out. Most of the names are neutral, unless it’s someone we don’t like, then it’s usually something in Japanese that’s nonsensical when translated into English. What she calls the guy who replaced her windows translates into, “senile eggplant.”
Is calling people things in Japanese just a way you compensate for not knowing their names so no one realizes you don’t know their names? Or do you actually speak Japanese? Obviously I’m missing something here…
Both and neither. I speak a little Japanese, and I know some of their names.
I think I might use “senile eggplant”. It’s something you can call someone in a parking lot if they’re driving too slow for your liking. :)
Well, if that doesn’t speed them up, I don’t know what would.
I’m still (despite my age) good with names and faces (Hubby says it’s the cop in me) and it pisses me off when we talk about someone that I will name and describe and Hubby has no idea who or what I’m talking about. He’s lousy with names. I’ve come to realise in my years with him, that whenever we’re somewhere and he runs into someone he knows and doesn’t introduce me, it’s because he doesn’t remember their name. So, I just walk away as if I’m not with him…
I hope he at least remembers your name so he can call you back after you walk away. Although, I guess, “Woman! Get back here!” works too.
I am the exact same way with names, and it has always been like that, so I can’t even blame it on being almost-30. I started just waving at anyone who looked vaguely familiar, or who MIGHT be waving at me, which has caused more than one embarrassing situation where the other person has absolutely no idea who I am.
It’s even worse when someone (usually a man, usually attractive) gives you a big friendly, “hi!” and you give him a big friendly “hi!” in return and then it turns out he was talking to the person behind you. It is slightly more humiliating when they pretend not to notice that you (okay, me) just made a dork of yourself (fine, MYSELF). Not that that’s ever happened to me. Ha ha. Ha. Let’s move on.
I said “Hi Hazel” to a girl in my office last week and she looked at me like I had two heads. I then said “Your name isn’t Hazel is it?” and she informed me her name is Melissa. Of all the wrong names to come up with how on earth was ‘Hazel’ the name that came out of my mouth?
I used to have coworker who called me Midge. Midge! That’s not even close to my name. I also had a boss (same office) who called me Sheila. Also not even close. But Hazel is hilarious. Although if you called me that, I would cut you.
I totally think crossing your fingers is definitely as effective as a CT scan. I’m pretty sure it’s the method of prevention that my stellar health insurance plan advocates.
Also, I think Naughty Monkey is referring to This American Life (the TV version). That Jackie O segment is available on their web site, I think (or, it was for a while, anyway). I could be all helpful and dig up a link, but apparently that’s not my style today.
My health insurance plan theoretically covers everything a person could possibly need, assuming you are willing to spend 40 hours on the telephone with them explaining why they denied your claim in error. I don’t doubt that many people have had strokes and heart attacks during these conversations, but good luck getting that covered, suckers.
I have a problem with this too. I usually say their name along with a stupid phrase of a song I know (like Brandi – “you’re a fine girl”) but most of the time, it doesn’t help me much and well, i pretty much offend everyone with my songs.
I hope you never meet a Lola. That could turn ugly fast.