It's all about your own internal GC. When you meet someone, you don't know if they're worth remembering or not. It takes a few encounters (or generations) before your mind realizes that this is necessary information. If you want to prevent an object from being GC'd in Ruby you can assign it to a constant. In real life you can hack your brain by making an association with an constant in your life. A good trick is to try to remember their face and the name of a celebrity. The extra few seconds you spend thinking about what celebrity has the same name is usually enough to trick my brain into remembering. Can't think of anyone famous? Ask them. At least you'll spend a bit of time talking about their name and it's a fun ice breaker.