I live in a city with a great bike culture. Every Thursday I meet up with the local bike group and ride with pretty much the same crowd every week. Sometimes it’s like 30 of us, sometimes upwards of 100. I remember a lot of peoples’ names, they never remember mine, and I feel like being friendly and saying hi with their name presents me as “who is this stranger who knows my name”. Any thoughts on this? Should I approach people in a different way when saying high on our bike rides?
TL;DR
I say hi to people using their name. They don’t remember me and act strange given that I know their name.
4 comments
Remembering names is a huge advantage; don’t feel awkward because you remember and other people don’t. What you should do instead is follow up with more involved conversations so that it’s easier to remember you.
I always like remembering peoples names…..I don’t think it’s ever been a negative.
I can’t remember names at all. At work, I have to deal with several hundreds of people every day, so my social capacities are just burned out. At work people are the numbers of their orders/tables and outside of it, people are what they do or wear. And even then, only if it has any meaning to me. Some person who once said hi is purged from my mind right after the interaction.
People love hearing their name.
If you can remember their names, use them! They don’t act strange, because you know their name, they act strange, because they don’t know yours.