I have a terrible memory. Absolutely awful. And where this rears its ugly head the most is in remembering people’s names. So from an early age, I came up with a defense mechanism. I called almost no one by their name. When I would see someone I knew, my greeting would be, “Hey, what’s up?” but never Hey [insert name here] what’s up?”

Because I have been doing this for decades, and I do it with absolutely everyone, I have never once been called out on it. No one has ever accused me of using these greetings because I didn’t remember their name, but that is so often the case. But recently, I have been noticing my more social, better with people friends, and they always address people by name. And if they don’t know someone’s name – this is revolutionary – they ask. Somehow, this had never occurred to me as an option.

So, my challenge for yesterday was to address people by name. I had my niece and nephew’s graduation party to go to last night, so I figured it would be the perfect time to do this task. There were a lot of people there that I “knew” but hadn’t seen in years, as well as people that I see yearly at events, talk to regularly, and have no idea what their names are.

So, all night, if I talked to someone, I addressed them by name. I had to ask quite a few people their names and it was totally fine. And I have to say, that I got in better conversations at the party than I have at any event in a really long time. Was it because I was addressing people by name? I don’t know. What I do know is that I was way more intentional about being social. And it wasn’t bad at all. I would even say that I enjoyed myself.

Takeaway:

There really was a big difference in the conversations that I had with people. And some were people that I hadn’t talked to in years. Others were people who I hadn’t ever really said more than, “Hey, what’s up?” to. But by being intentional, it was a lot less awkward. And, people don’t mind at all if you ask them their name. Definitely something that I will be incorporating into regular, everyday life.