“Coming Out” as Face Blind

Re:“Coming Out” as Face Blind by tempestn on Sunday April 15, 2018 @12:03AM (#16841130)

Yeah, this resonated with me too. I can recognize faces, but I'm terrible with remembering names, or even remembering whether I ever knew a name. I can know someone casually for months and have their name just disappear from my memory, or I can see someone I know I recognize, but have no memory of whether or not I've actually been introduced to them and learned their name. Those are the worst—not knowing whether I've just seen someone before, or if I actually should know their name, so not knowing whether to introduce myself.

I find that if I learn a little bit about someone when I meet them it can help a bit, as it anchors the name to something in my memory. Otherwise, just being honest feels best: "Hey, I recognize you, but I'm terrible with names... what's your name again?" Works alright whether I've been introduced to them in the past or not.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:“Coming Out” as Face Blind by TheSpiceIsLife on Sunday April 15, 2018 @01:59AM (#16841456)

More recently I’ve found if I meet someone new, either at work or socially, I write down their name, or email it to myself on my phone.

After the initial interaction I can then make any additional notes I think might help in remember relevant information about the person.

I don’t keep any of this info, afterwards I’ll either know their name from repeat interactions and delete it as unneeded, or not need it anyway, and delete it or throw it out.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:“Coming Out” as Face Blind by toomanybeersies on Sunday April 15, 2018 @03:08AM (#16841643)

On a similar note, repetition is a great way to remember names.

Try to repeat the persons name in conversation a few times, just slip in in there.

For instance, if they say their name is Charles, respond with "So Charles, how's your day been so far?".

Not only does it help you remember their name, you're also more personable.

Since I've started consciously doing this, it's helped a lot.

I'm terrible with names. It's entirely possible for me to meet someone and know practically their entire life story, but not remember their name.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:“Coming Out” as Face Blind by coolguy132435 on Sunday April 15, 2018 @10:20AM (#16842719)

I do this all the time when meeting new people. my memory for facial recognition is much better than an unaided association to a name alone, so shortly after meeting a new person, I try to mention some aspect of their appearance in a sentence. e.g. "Hey Steve - you've got a cool hairstyle."

It can come off weird to some people, but their name would be forgotten in seconds otherwise, so I've decided it's a worthwhile method.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:“Coming Out” as Face Blind by TheSpiceIsLife on Sunday April 15, 2018 @05:26AM (#16841961)

I work in a noisy environment and many of the intros are quite brief as a new starter is being shown around and I’m busy doing my job, so I’ve taken up quickly jotting it down.

But in other situations the repartition method has and does work really well too. Also, immediately introducing the new person to someone else works strongly too.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:“Coming Out” as Face Blind by IanCal on Sunday April 15, 2018 @05:50AM (#16842013)

I had success with putting these kinds of things into anki flashcards for a while but didn't keep up with it. I need to start that again.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:“Coming Out” as Face Blind by anitil on Sunday April 15, 2018 @09:51PM (#16846176)

How did you do this? Did you take photos of the person and include it in the deck?

I want to do something similar to this, but haven't really nailed down how it would work ('hi nice to meat you IanCal! Could I, uh... take a photo of you?')

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:“Coming Out” as Face Blind by tempestn on Monday April 16, 2018 @05:02PM (#16852738)

I bet even without a picture, the act of writing down the name (or even better a name and a couple details about the person) would be enough to lock the name into my memory. Maybe I need to start that too...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:“Coming Out” as Face Blind by IanCal on Tuesday April 17, 2018 @12:35PM (#16859891)

Not with faces, but names and important or useful info (what they do, kids, interests).

The difficulty is remembering until I would get a chance to do it.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:“Coming Out” as Face Blind by nasmorn on Monday April 16, 2018 @02:34AM (#16847063)

I always thought I had a hard time putting together faces and names even though I have a pretty great memory otherwise. So one evening at a party with mostly strangers I made an effort to really ask everyone their names make mnemonic devices and repeating them like I would for stuff I actually care about. At the end of the evening I still knew the names of ever single of the 30 something people I just met. Which proved to me conclusively that I just don’t happen to give a shit.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:“Coming Out” as Face Blind by tempestn on Monday April 16, 2018 @02:56AM (#16847150)

How many of those people's names did you remember a week or a month later?

[ Parent | on HN ]