As regular, medium, or grande readers of my blog may know, I spend a good amount of time developing ways to confuse or frustrate people I encounter in new social situations. I've previously described my penchant for inventing new words and using them in conversations. That works pretty well a lot of the time, but I find it can be too simple. I have been trying out an updated, and probably a bit meaner, version of this which I call "Name Drop"
Don't be fooled by the title, it has nothing to do with mentioning famous people I know, mostly because I don't know many famous people. Name Dropping here refers to repeatedly forgetting someone's name after recently being introduced to them, or in a more advanced form consistently replacing it with some (potentially absurd) substitute. This tends to provoke more of a reaction from women than it does from men, for reasons I couldn't prove but might be able to guess. Not very long ago I met a guy named Julius (unlikely, but it's true) and over the course of that evening I called him 'Barry', 'David' and 'Lars', and each time he would correct me by simply pointing at his chest and saying "Julius", which made me wonder if only his torso were named Julius and the rest of him was actually called "Lars". On the same night, I was introduced to a woman named Sandy. Now, I say woman, but she was probably about 19, and therefore on that cusp of questionable nomenclature. I'll use the term woman for no reason other than executive decision. Sandy is not a name I encounter often, but this only made the game more fun. In her case, I went as exotic as I could with the names. I pulled out a 'Greta', a risky move because Sandy was Asian and might realize that the fact I picked something so patently Swedish means I was playing some game. Fortunately, that didn't occur to her as she merely said in a very earnest way, "No, I'm Sandy. We met half an hour ago." I apologized profusely and moved away, pretending I saw someone I recognized. Later in the night, I came up to Sandy and said, "Hey Diane, we're about to leave if you want to come with us." As soon as the words escaped my lips, I wondered if this game might genuinely hurt her feelings. I doubted it, because my name has been mangled like it went through a combine harvester so many times in my life that I don't take it seriously, and I honestly don't believe someone being bad with names is some sort of character flaw, although I hear people confess it to me as though it were a meth addiction. But Sandy was not even mad, more confused, bemused, amused, but not used. She asked me, "Why do you keep messing up my name? It's Sandy." I was slightly shocked. Nobody ever has questioned me on this before, probably they just assume that I'm bad with names. But I've also built safeguards against through some basic strategic guidelines. It's a crucial element of the game to apologize sincerely after every "strike" to make sure there are no hard feelings. If you sense they're a bit miffed, you have to fly back to base camp before you decide to engage another target. Sandy gave me no impression that she found my antics anything but a minor annoyance, but now she asked me a question without anger, but genuine curiousity. Is it possible that I made her feel bad by implying that she wasn't important enough to remmeber? I couldn't just go on like this, treating people I've just met as playthings and making them doubt their worth as a human. I realized that it was probably best to be honest with her and tell her the truth, a rare moment of honesty and a chance for personal growth.
Luckily for me, I fought that instinct off and instead created some convoluted and thoroughly unbelievable story about how I can't remember names because as a child I ate too many carrots and they release some protease inhibitor that makes it hard for me to recognize and recall the names of objects or people. I told her that in restaurants this makes it hard for me to ask for simple things like "bread" because I first go through a minute of calling it "chimpanzee" and "tidal estuary". Amazingly, Sandy found this to be plausible enough to convince me that I got away with it. Sucker.
But as I think about it now, I can't really say why I play these games. Mostly, it's because they're fun, but also because I have a strange desire to stir things up and push, in a very small way, the boundries of social behavior. It's probably why I also like "Curb Your Enthusiasm" or Oscar Wilde and other comedies of manners. Manners are weird things, and all social conventions should be prodded and poked from time to time to see if they stand up or collapse like some popsicle stick structure that eight year olds build. I also secretly wonder what I would do if somebody snapped at me or cried because I called her 'Inga' instead of Jennifer. It would be a new and interesting social situation, one that I wouldn't feel that I've been in before. It would probably force me to be quick on my feet and diffuse a tense situation with humor, two things I love to do. I also derive secret but strong thrills from the feeling that I'm getting away with something, and the idea that I can purposely call someone by the wrong name or make up a word like "omnisentatious" and use it excites me in a very odd way. I don't really plan to stop, but I need a new way to amuse myself while playing with strangers. If you have any ideas, let me know. Keep in mind that I live in Manhattan, and as such have an endless supply of anonymous clumps lurching around the streets just waiting for me to vex them. Just throwing it out there.
Don't be fooled by the title, it has nothing to do with mentioning famous people I know, mostly because I don't know many famous people. Name Dropping here refers to repeatedly forgetting someone's name after recently being introduced to them, or in a more advanced form consistently replacing it with some (potentially absurd) substitute. This tends to provoke more of a reaction from women than it does from men, for reasons I couldn't prove but might be able to guess. Not very long ago I met a guy named Julius (unlikely, but it's true) and over the course of that evening I called him 'Barry', 'David' and 'Lars', and each time he would correct me by simply pointing at his chest and saying "Julius", which made me wonder if only his torso were named Julius and the rest of him was actually called "Lars". On the same night, I was introduced to a woman named Sandy. Now, I say woman, but she was probably about 19, and therefore on that cusp of questionable nomenclature. I'll use the term woman for no reason other than executive decision. Sandy is not a name I encounter often, but this only made the game more fun. In her case, I went as exotic as I could with the names. I pulled out a 'Greta', a risky move because Sandy was Asian and might realize that the fact I picked something so patently Swedish means I was playing some game. Fortunately, that didn't occur to her as she merely said in a very earnest way, "No, I'm Sandy. We met half an hour ago." I apologized profusely and moved away, pretending I saw someone I recognized. Later in the night, I came up to Sandy and said, "Hey Diane, we're about to leave if you want to come with us." As soon as the words escaped my lips, I wondered if this game might genuinely hurt her feelings. I doubted it, because my name has been mangled like it went through a combine harvester so many times in my life that I don't take it seriously, and I honestly don't believe someone being bad with names is some sort of character flaw, although I hear people confess it to me as though it were a meth addiction. But Sandy was not even mad, more confused, bemused, amused, but not used. She asked me, "Why do you keep messing up my name? It's Sandy." I was slightly shocked. Nobody ever has questioned me on this before, probably they just assume that I'm bad with names. But I've also built safeguards against through some basic strategic guidelines. It's a crucial element of the game to apologize sincerely after every "strike" to make sure there are no hard feelings. If you sense they're a bit miffed, you have to fly back to base camp before you decide to engage another target. Sandy gave me no impression that she found my antics anything but a minor annoyance, but now she asked me a question without anger, but genuine curiousity. Is it possible that I made her feel bad by implying that she wasn't important enough to remmeber? I couldn't just go on like this, treating people I've just met as playthings and making them doubt their worth as a human. I realized that it was probably best to be honest with her and tell her the truth, a rare moment of honesty and a chance for personal growth.
Luckily for me, I fought that instinct off and instead created some convoluted and thoroughly unbelievable story about how I can't remember names because as a child I ate too many carrots and they release some protease inhibitor that makes it hard for me to recognize and recall the names of objects or people. I told her that in restaurants this makes it hard for me to ask for simple things like "bread" because I first go through a minute of calling it "chimpanzee" and "tidal estuary". Amazingly, Sandy found this to be plausible enough to convince me that I got away with it. Sucker.
But as I think about it now, I can't really say why I play these games. Mostly, it's because they're fun, but also because I have a strange desire to stir things up and push, in a very small way, the boundries of social behavior. It's probably why I also like "Curb Your Enthusiasm" or Oscar Wilde and other comedies of manners. Manners are weird things, and all social conventions should be prodded and poked from time to time to see if they stand up or collapse like some popsicle stick structure that eight year olds build. I also secretly wonder what I would do if somebody snapped at me or cried because I called her 'Inga' instead of Jennifer. It would be a new and interesting social situation, one that I wouldn't feel that I've been in before. It would probably force me to be quick on my feet and diffuse a tense situation with humor, two things I love to do. I also derive secret but strong thrills from the feeling that I'm getting away with something, and the idea that I can purposely call someone by the wrong name or make up a word like "omnisentatious" and use it excites me in a very odd way. I don't really plan to stop, but I need a new way to amuse myself while playing with strangers. If you have any ideas, let me know. Keep in mind that I live in Manhattan, and as such have an endless supply of anonymous clumps lurching around the streets just waiting for me to vex them. Just throwing it out there.
3 comments:
May I suggest "upgrading/downgrading" people's names? As in, you meet a Sandy Moore. Every time you talk to her you alternate between "Dr. Moore" or "Miss Moore" or "Dude". Really mess with her opinion of what you think of her (something of outmost importance to women).
dasare1503, you're wise beyond your years. And I would guess those years are around 22, but I'm just spitballing. That is something I will definitely try. I might even throw in "Senator Moore," "Madame Secretary Moore," and "Trollop Moore." Variety is the spice of something or other.
"sandy was not even mad, more confused, bemused, amused, but not used". this seems at odds with the rest of the post, because part of the whole theme was your strange desire to "use" people as experiments, test subjects to see how much a person can get away in terms of bending social rules.
i had dinner the other night with a huge asshole who hates, hates, hates christopher hitchens, so i am now even further inspired to give him a chance!
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