I dread
meeting excessive amounts of new people, not because I don’t like people
(though… fair point, there is that), but because I’m terrible with names and
faces. When someone is introduced to me
it’s like my brain does a 5 second samba to the tune of a foghorn, drowning out
all possible information in that window.
By the time the window is closed it simply cannot be re-opened. And just like that, you’re screwed. You’re left to make do with elongated
“Hiiiiiii”s and ill-fitting nicknames and calling women 20 years your senior
“playa” in a total blind panic.
I have
worked with people for 3 years and not known their names. And these weren’t people I was on mere
nodding terms with, these were people I used to have in-jokes with. I knew the in-jokes, but not their names.
Once I
decided to cheat, and drew myself a diagram of desks and got a sympathetic
friend to fill it in with names. It
worked a treat for 2 weeks and 3 days, until everyone swapped seats. It was like a cruel game of musical
chairs. Suddenly I found myself
approaching a man I was fairly certain wasn’t called Kirsty, and mumbling a
slurred version of the word “Ribs” before barrelling into conversation to avoid
being asked to clarify what I’d called him.
I’m an equal
opportunity offender when it comes to faces.
Today I decided to change it up by going to the Woolworths across the
road from the Woolworths I usually use (I know what you’re thinking, STOP
living on the edge with such bold life choices Painefull, you’re playing with
fire). At the check-out the woman
serving me asked how I was with that tone of familiarity that implies more than
‘I’m trying not to look at the clock as I wait for
my shift to end’.
ME: Um…
good? Thanks…
CHECK-OUT
LADY: You’re my neighbour.
ME: Am I?
APPARENTLY
MY NEIGHBOUR: You live in a flat at 98.
ME: I do…
HOPEFULLY MY
NEIGHBOUR OTHERWISE HAS TOO MUCH INFORMATION: I’m in 96 – you park out the
front of my place all the time.
ME: Oh. Hi.
Sorry. Yes. How bout that…
As a
sidebar, this is why, despite my aspirations, I have not talent for crime fighting. If this woman had committed a
crime repeatedly as I parked my car outside her house every day, and after a
year the cops had asked me to describe her, their notes from that interview
would have read…
Suspect has hair. Is definitely a woman. As tall as this-ish. Hair might be brown. Has face with nose.
But perhaps
it’s even trickier when you do recognise someone, they recognise you, but neither
of you has the will to go through with the socially mandated interaction. Then, as if by magic, somewhere in the empty
air between you, an unspoken agreement is formed to each pretend the other
person is invisible.
I lived in
perfect harmony with such an agreement for over a year, studiously avoiding eye
contact with a former colleague on the non-explicit understanding that while he
and I don’t have a problematic past, there is simply nothing to say now. We had worked together, but never socialized,
and neither of us had remotely enough information on each other to sustain even
the smallest of small talk.
And then,
for no apparent reason, after 14 months of harmony, he broke our deal. He addressed me directly while we both stood
in line to get coffee last week. It was
such a betrayal of everything we had been through together. It’s like I don’t even know who he is anymore…
all over again.
What
followed was an awkward non-catch up, a barista who seemed to slow down just to
spite me, and that classic, hurried spasm of a farewell: ‘We should totally do
coffee, I’ll call you or you call me, and we’ll make it happen, we could grab a
drink or something!’ I like to think he
understands the unspoken contract we both entered in that moment to do none of
those things, but it’s hard to say with this guy. He’s clearly changed. I guess.
Barely knowing him at all it’s a little hard to say.
Life goes
on, unspoken agreements to never speak continue to be made. Just this week I entered one with a girl at pilates
I suspect I went to school with. Now, once
a week we will sweat, breathe loudly and do exercises that will make us feel
like we’ve been punched in the stomach the next day. We will then busy ourselves rolling our mats,
gaze listlessly at distant corners of the room when passing each other and
leave in a staggered formation to avoid any possible risk of exposure.
I think it
could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Painefull
Out
