How to (Politely) Ask for Someone’s Name Again
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Uh-oh...here comes Cruella. Well, not actual Cruella, just the perfectly nice woman who was wearing a Dalmatian-print blouse when you met her (at this same party last year). Which automatically registered her in your mind as Cruella. Which, given the alarmingly well-aimed dart of recognition she’s just shot at you, is the very opposite of helpful in this moment.
Lindy…Mindy…Cindy…it was definitely an “indy,” wasn’t it? No, no; she was just a huge fan of art-house films.
Yikes—she’s moving toward you now with such a confident gait that you’re already rebranding her as “Speedy.”
Carolina, Cristina, Martina…
Names scrolling, mouth drying, options petering out, you have no choice but to flounder—or use one of the techniques below.
Go for the gaffe.
If you lead with the assumption that she’s forgotten you, she might not figure out that you’ve forgotten her. March right on up, thrust your handshake mitt right out, and say: “Hi! You can’t possibly remember me, but I’m Janice.”
Draw a nice bath of self-regard for the forgotten soul to splash around in.
“Hi! You are still the only person I’ve ever met who knows everything about Iranian cinema. What have you seen lately?” Of course, not every forgotten moniker will be attached to such a fun fact…in which case, remember: This is party chitchat, not a sworn deposition. In the struggle to connect, it is absolutely fine to treat a boring personal detail like a balloon and blow it full of import or amazement. “You had left your dog in a kennel for days!” or “Both your kids had just been to the dentist.” Then, once the person has launched into the latest from Asgard Farhadi or revealed that now the kids are going to the orthodontist, you can slip in “I can’t believe I’m blanking on your name” without leaving a scratch.
Come clean like a queen.
I steal this one from the late, legendary writer bell hooks, whom I bumped into at some event many years after I had taken a course of hers in college. We spoke for a few minutes (well, she smiled while I stammered.) Then, taking me slightly aside as if into her confidence, she cast an arm lightly around my shoulder. “Now, refresh me of your name,” she said in a sunny but conspiratorial way, treating “Tish” as some delightful, elusive cocktail that she would be so thrilled for me to slip her on the sly. And when I told her, she said, “Right!” and snapped her fingers—pretending to perfection that I was someone who had fleetingly slipped her mind rather than someone who had never remotely occupied it in the first place. See? If you do it right, you can flat-out tell a person that you don’t know who they are, yet make them feel like they are really someone.
Tish Durkin is a journalist who hosts the podcast Jiu-Jitsu ’22.
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