Oh, dear. As a person who is severely name impaired, I might have said the same thing, and it wouldn't have meant anything in terms of what I thought of someone.

Yeah, I really liked one of the people I met at dinner last night, but my brain wouldn't accept her face and name matching so I referred to her as "Graham's wife" all night. Please tell Tom not to worry!!

I think Tom got the vibe that it was in a talking shit kind of way. He's easily spooked about that stuff, so it's just unfortunate.

Well, we've been hanging with these folks a few times a monrh pretty much since we moved here, so it's been a few months.

When you're quickly scribbling a to-call list, "shrink" is easier to write than "psychiatrist".

Nora, I totally feel for Tom, but maybe it's their own social ineptness, not anything to do with him! I've known folks for a while that I was not able to remember their name and was too embarrassed to ask. Also known a Kevin for months who I thought was "Keith". Yikes.

Nora, I don't know if it helps, but you hear the names of the wives/husbands/kids of friends much more often than their own names, since your friend talks about their family, but rarely about themselves in the 3rd person.

Not that I ever have that problem...

I really suck at names and I can go a long time knowing someone and still not know their name. I do feel bad for Tom though, because that has to suck for someone with social anxiety to hear. I may be biased, but I think Tom is an awesome person to know, and I hate it that others don't always see that.

I've been in the Y weight machine room at roughly the same time MWF for something like four years. (Last week, the magic computer program said I had lifted 1.5 million pounds.) The same eight or 10 people have overlapped with me all that time. I say hello. We talk occasionally. One guy is one of those people who knows everyone, and so I finally learned his name after six months or so. The other people are, in my mind, the tall guy; the guy whose shorts are too tight; the annoying woman who sits on the machines and talks; et al.

Aargh. A "friend" (in this case, a friend of a friend) posted a link that revealed a whole new subset of People Who Are Wrong on the Internet.

I really suck at names and I can go a long time knowing someone and still not know their name.

When I went to my uncle's memorial service a couple of weeks ago, I called a cousin by the wrong name. Well, actually, I thought Cousin A was Cousin B, because I hadn't seen them in, like, 20 years. But still.

I do feel bad for Tom though, because that has to suck for someone with social anxiety to hear.

I admit, it would send me into a tailspin to overhear that. I can look at Tom and say he shouldn't do what I would do, and then I get pimpslapped by my hypocrisy.

I admit, it would send me into a tailspin to overhear that. I can look at Tom and say he shouldn't do what I would do, and then I get pimpslapped by my hypocrisy.

Yeah- it's understandable that it happened, I just wish he hadn't heard that because this has been one of our major social efforts here in New Orleans and it just deflated him so much.