Thursday, January 08, 2009

Huzzah! An Exceptional Excuse.

I wrote here before about my quite shockingly bad memory for names. It's beyond ridiculous, bordering on rude. I've met heaps of people out at various functions and shows and hand on my heart I cannot remember the name of 98% of them. I mask this faux pas with the use of 'Darling'. 'Darling, how delightful to see you again, have you met Darling, Darling?' So skilled am I at Darling-ing my way about town I have almost but not quite managed to acquit myself in these horrific instances. Unless I am forced to introduce more than one Darling to a group of Darling, then I usually hit the rum and pretend I can't see people ( remarkably easy given my terrible eyesight).
But NOW! Huzzah Telegraph. An excuse has been gifted to me. A scientific excuse no less. It's not my fault I can't remember blasted names. I'm not rude, I'm not a feather head, they are not bland melting puddles of confusingly similar features. It is because I am clearly lacking in Oxytocin.
Oh science, isn't there anything you can't shift the blame onto? I heart you.

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39 Comments:

Blogger morgor said...

Thank Odin for that.
People I've been meeting occasionally for years and I still forget their names until the day after.
I even got my managers name wrong before...

10:05 a.m.  
Blogger Unknown said...

Oxytocin, Darling?

Isn't that the hormone they drip feed you in maternity hospitals to "move things along"? As in, "You're only two centimetres dilated dear... we'll just rig this up, shall we, to help move things along?"

The question mark is entirely rhetorical and I think "move things along" may be labour ward speak for "get this baby out before the shift changes."

10:22 a.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

Move things along is surely lingo for 'the doctor had better things to do with his time than stand around here waiting for you to pop a sprog out Dearie.'

Morgor, it's great is it not. For years I have struggled to remember names, I thought I had it cracked a few years ago my assigning nick names to people in my head in the hope that it would jar their real names loose when the time came, but alas only the nick names remained and you just can't go around saying, 'Strange Sheep, this is The Guru, Guru, Strange Sheep.'

10:40 a.m.  
Blogger Unknown said...

Never saw a doctor in the room with any of mine. Never. They must have been earning their real dosh at a private birthing emporium.

10:44 a.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

Maybe they do 'distant' birthing. I'm considerably crosser now that I was earlier. Gimmie's post has made my dander flare up.

11:05 a.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

what's worst is when you meet someone and you can remember the name of their sister or brother that died a few years ago, but can't remember their name, and it's really obvious. . .

"Hi J.... , em, ... , you, how are you doing?"

11:05 a.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

Morgor I am in the situation so often it's practically a way of life. What's worse is you can't really ask someone you've met countless times their name. They would most likely be offended.

11:07 a.m.  
Blogger Unknown said...

I recommend an absent-minded visage at all times, they will kindly prompt you with their names and wonder if you are "losing it". It's far less embarassing.

Yeah, Gimme's post shows the moral nadir of the woo pedlars.

11:14 a.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

Absent minded you say, I'll start wearing jackets with elbow patches and patting myself down for glasses that I never carry.

Yes, I already knew that about woo merchants, it mostly fuels my dislike of them. That and their out and out lying. My hatred of Reiki in particular is only magnified when I read something like that.

11:25 a.m.  
Blogger Unknown said...

That should do it.

We wuz on a RYR fight beside a woman who divulged that she does Reiki. The clouds became very, very, very interesting. It was a confined space, after all, and they lock you up for getting into a row on an airplane.

11:31 a.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

'Doing' Reiki is exactly like me 'doing' woodoo. I believe I would have politely told her to shut her yap. How does one divulge that sort of thing anyway?

11:42 a.m.  
Blogger Unknown said...

Well, being on a RYR flight brings one that bit closer to god, or death, or something... maybe it's a powerful disinhibiter or 'truth' serum, like sodium pentathol.

11:54 a.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

Heh, maybe so. Although I think if I was to go down in flames with nothing more than a reikist beside me I'd take a very damn dim view of things. Well, dimmer.

12:02 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Could you stick up a link to Gimme's last post please?

12:05 p.m.  
Blogger Andraste said...

I was introducing people at our New Year's party and mis-named a guy who has...yes...the same name I do.

I'm getting a prescription.

12:17 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

Morgor, here.
http://strandedongaia.blogspot.com/

Andraste, that's hilarious. Fancy a jacket with elbow patches too?

12:25 p.m.  
Blogger Twenty Major said...

I was introducing people at our New Year's party and mis-named a guy who has...yes...the same name I do.

Cuthbert?

12:52 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Problems with names seems to run in our family. I've been known to call boyfriends the names of exes, or worse still, women, and my mother rarely gets my name right, but nothing beat my Aunty Clare's Christmas card to my parents, with a message for myself and my two sisters reading: Love to Siobhan, and Aoife. That's right, I was a blank. Middle-child too. Not even a Darling. Sniff.

1:01 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Woops, the blank part didn't quite come out there, so took the wind out of me sails a bit. Just to hammer it home, the card read: Love to Siobhan, _________ and Aoife. Right. I'll get me coat.

1:02 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

Hah, Fiona, now that IS taking the biscuit. They could at the very least put '2' in there somewhere.
Gamma used to take a scattergun approach to our names, firing the first few syllables out there before landing on a name. It was quite hit and miss, but entertaining, 'EthBarCateline... ETHELINE!'


Twenty, Cuthbert?

1:08 p.m.  
Blogger Andraste said...

Cuthbert? Seriously?

Good name for a Bassett Hound, though...

2:41 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I recently discovered that my grotesquely widening belly was in fact due to a diagnosed cheese deficiency. Thank Jebus!

3:17 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I hear ya Fiona. I always get mixed up with the BF's. The only reason I've stuck with the present one is because his name is the same as the last one.

3:53 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

Cheese deficiency is a VERY serious condition WD, I suggest some Camembert on Carrs Water Biscuits, STAT.


Apropos of absolutely nothing, DL=72.5 kilos. ( since I won't be posting a Satdee exercise programme just yet). Yep. I am pleased.

5:11 p.m.  
Blogger Megan McGurk said...

No, my favourite faux-science story involving oxytocin was in the last year or two when shrub's flunkies were telling women that casual sex burdened them with too much oxytocin which would therefore make it IMPOSSIBLE for women to ever commit to a long term relationship or marriage.

I shit you not.

5:37 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

But but but I thought it made a person bond, wot, no casual sex= Glenn Close style wabbit stews? Who lied to me!?

5:39 p.m.  
Blogger Sweary said...

Oxywhatnow? I don't like it. If one never gets the chance to faint dramatically, Basil Fawlty style, in order to avoid introducing those whose names you've forgotten, then what's the point of it all?

6:32 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

Hah, seems as good as excuse as pretending to not see them. Or worse pretending to spot-and waving at- someone you simply HAVE to talk to across the room.

7:26 p.m.  
Blogger James McInerney said...

I was about nine years old before my dad could tell for certain which one of his two sons was James.

...and no its ok, I don't need to talk to anybody about this :)

10:52 p.m.  
Blogger Ramon Insertnamehere said...

I have the same problem with people's names.

I therefore tend to call everybody "comrade".

10:54 p.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

okeeee Docky, you must have been VERY alike. Or maybe he was just bad with names, like Comrade Ramon.

10:57 p.m.  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Hey Hey - there's nothing wrong with calling people you've known for years "pal" "buddy" or "dude", is there?

I have friends, my friends have friends, I meet my friends' friends out and about and, frankly, I can't be expected to always be paying attention/sober/interested.

Happy new year to you all.

Dudes.

11:15 p.m.  
Blogger Manuel said...

oh shirley you are a one....

11:18 p.m.  
Blogger morgor said...

hah, i like comrade, i think i'll use it.

I've been using "Champ" for too long now.

Mmmm cheeeeese... *drool*

11:51 a.m.  
Blogger fatmammycat said...

I watched Midnight in The garden of Good and Evil the other night, I'm gonna go around calling everyone 'Sport' for a while, at least until somebody threatens to throttle me.

1:37 p.m.  
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