Last weekend my husband and I attended a wedding where we didn’t know many guests. We were seated at a table with six individuals we had never met. As each sat and introduced themselves, I silently thought, “I have to remember their names.”
I failed.
Why is this so difficult for me? Knowing it’s a gap I have, you would think I could easily overcome this memory lapse. However, I experience it over and over. I’m listening, interested, and aware that the likelihood of my forgetting their names is high. Yet the next person is barely introducing themselves and I’ve forgotten the first person’s name. I thought the average person could remember seven things. Why can’t I remember one? That’s way below average.
I attended a Dale Carnegie webinar last year on memory retention, thinking that would be a unique learning experience on something for which I could use help. While the other attendees found the memory aids for remembering strangers’ names using mnemonic association cues effective, I wasn’t convinced. If I can’t remember Bill Porter’s name and try to envision him giving $1 bills to an Amtrak baggage attendant, what the heck would make me remember that his name is Bill Porter and not Lionel Cashman?
I remember my high school locker combination, the phone number of my best friend growing up who no longer lives there or even has a landline phone, and the birthdays of everyone that I send cards to and buy gifts for (an appreciated trait until Facebook diluted my thoughtfulness). So why can’t I remember a few new names? I think my brain is full. It has a maximum capacity and I’m there. I need to clear out some info I no longer need.
Do I need to remember that Jack, Chrissy, and Janet used to frequent the Regal Beagle, where they would run into the Ropers? Do I still need to know every word to every Schoolhouse Rock song? And sorry Mr. Devlin, but I just don’t need to diagram sentences anymore, so why store those rules in my bursting brain? How do I siphon that knowledge out to make room for remembering new names?
Some of you may possibly suffer this shortcoming, too and now you don’t feel alone. Or maybe you find mnemonic cues, visual association, repeating names internally, or repeating them out loud helpful. I’ll keep trying. Next time you see me, perhaps you can imagine me at a debutante ball wearing an enormous coat…
great topic. I suffer from that too and haven’t found a way to remember names. What is baffling to me is that some just stick to my head and I remember them years later. The other day I met a former high school student of mine whose name was Ferdusi. I saw her on the street and said “Hi Ferdusi, remember me?”. She was shocked I remembered her name. Ok, why do I remember Ferdusi (an uncommon name in the US) but fail to recall Tom or Sarah, or mistake Kathryn for Jennifer? Go figure…. It must have something to do with my Portuguese speaking mind. (Portuguese is my first language). thanks.
For me, repeating a name after someone introduces themselves to me helps me double the chance I’ll remember the name:
person: “Hi, I’m Tom.”
me: “Hi Tom, nice to meet you, I’m Sarah.”
Deb, I feel your pain. And I agree that it isn’t just the names that disappear like vapor; it’s the important details about people and their lives. It’s even more embarrassing when I’ve had a long conversation with a person with some sharing of our personal lives, and the other person will ask me about my dogs and I can’t even remember if they are married or not!
I have taken to scribbling down a diagram when I really do want to remember – when I remember to do this in the moment (oh so many things to keep track of!!) and this has helped me to retain the information. It may be that multi-modal means of memory, like Sarah’s technique of saying the name/hearing the name/seeing the person all at once, are important for some of us and not for others.
But really I’m waiting for Google Glass to come along to help me out!
Paul – You sound like a visual person with the drawing.
Your dog story made me laugh.
Once I had to ask a former colleague-turned-friend to remind me of the name of one of his three sons. When I apologized for forgetting, his wife said, “Oh geez, we don’t remember our own kids’ names half the time. We certainly don’t expect you to.”
It was funny, but I felt relieved and I remember that story often.
I took the Dale Carnegie course many years ago and he says in “How to Win Friends” that ” the sweetest sound to anyone’s ear is the sound of one’s own name”. So I try to do it with everyone. I don’t remember the specifics of the mnemonic devices they suggested, but I try to say the name when I’m first introduced (nice to meet you, Jane), somewhere in the middle of the conversation (at which point, if I’ve forgotten the name, I say “I’m sorry–could you remind me again of your name?), then again when I say goodbye (bye, Jane; nice to have met you). It works pretty well, although I find first names easier to remember than last names.
The older I’ve become, the more likely I am to admit, “I know you just said your name, but could you please repeat it” and own up to my inability to remember names when I first hear them. Then I’ll try to use their name a few times during that first meeting, as I try to match the name with the face, to try to impress it into my brain.
That said, it’s the useless information that I DO retain, much to my dismay — I’m with you, Deb…. I walk around being able to recite my first grade class list, the name of every dog my best friend’s family has ever had, etc. Useless information reigns!