Quick background: I’m 24, 7 years removed from high school, still living in the area. I never really stood out in HS (in a class of 750 it’s hard to)
Okay, on Monday night I was heading to a friend’s house to watch the Steeler/Pats game but I stopped to pick up some beer first. Since the distributors close at 9pm (it was 9:30) I stopped at a bar that has take-out. The bartender is a cut blonde around my age. She looks at me a says “I think we went to HS together.” I didn’t recognize her so I was a little skeptical. After a couple questions it was confirmed, we did attend HS together. We were in the same homeroom classes (it’s like an attendance class in the morning). I didn’t have time to chat as I was already going somewhere so I had to say a quick goodbye.
So how did she remember me? We never talked or hung out, inside or outside of school. I’ve also changed quite a bit since then (short hair, no more glasses, better clothes). I was thinking of going back next Monday to talk to her some more, maybe even asking her out. Hey, she’s cute and I’m single.
you might not have stood out to the entire class, but you did stand out, to some degree, to her… enough, atleast, for her to remember you after so many years…
it’s not difficult to recognize school friends after 7 or so years, having not ever met them in the interim. i’ve been in such situations often, and though i might forget names i can easily recall faces…
You must have stood out to her. I went for my 10 year reunion last summer and people who I would have never thought remembered me. I haven’t seen any of these people in 10 years and grew my hair out and a couple of the women remembered me.
I’d say at least go back and talk to her, you might get lucky.
At my 5 year reunion, about 10x the people remembered me, as I remembered them. It was actually kind of embarassing. I was rather outspoken in class, that’s the only thing I can think of to cause this phenomenon.
She might just be a freak like my twin brother. He remebers everyone. Names, places, dates, obscure information. Even people he’s met just once. I see the blank look you gave the cutey bartender on a regular basis, all aimed at him.
I do the same thing - not everyone and everything but a hell of a lot more information than I should be able to recall. & every so often, I will freak someone out because I recognize them - even though they didn’t have any real impact on me at all. The other day I ran into someone I haven’t seen at all in maybe 10 years and even then, we didn’t speak more than 5 or 6 times, but I knew exactly who he was where we knew each other from, and what his hobby was 10 years ago along with the anecdote he had told a group of people that I was standing in. The information is just there.
Usually, if someone like that does vaguely recognize me, I’ll lie and pretend to only vaguely recognize them too because I feel that “Oh, yes, we were in social studies together in 9th grade with Mr. Smith. And then your SO was in my math class so you were always waiting outside for us to be let out. You used to eat Snicker’s in class and played soccer” might be a bit too frightening.
Maybe you looked familiar? I attended a lecture series about autism this past spring, and I knew I knew one of the parents. I talked to her after the lecture and confirmed that she did go to my high school, and had graduated a couple of years earlier than I did. The only reason I knew her at all in HS was that she was a friend of someone in my home room class. Funny to think I remembered enough about someone I barely knew that I’d recognize her nine years later…and unfortunate that it it wasn’t a guy I’d gone to school with
I can remember some fairly random people (and hey, let’s not discount the possibility that she may have thought you were kinda cute back then!). I have instantly recognized people I barely knew, in completely different places, years later. Just the other day I met a new librarian at our local library, and recognized her as someone I went to library school with–but I only had one conversation with her there, and it was clear that she didn’t remember me at all.
(My ability is fairly limited, though. I can’t tell most middle-aged men apart at all.)
I’m fairly good at the “remembery” thing, too. I recognized the woman who was the HS librarian the year I was in eighth grade when I saw her at a hurricane shelter in the next town 16 years later. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t recognize you 'cause she liked you, guy. I echo the votes for “go for it!”
Hell, dude, I picked out the face of a girl (in the biological sense … she was demon spawn) I knew back in grade school when I saw her picture in a yearbook. It had been over ten years and I’ve blocked the bad memories.
The mind is a mental trap when it comes to some things…
A few months before my 10 year reunion I ran into a girl from high school in a doctors office. She recognized me and knew my name, but I didn’t recognize her at first, nor remember her name. I hardly ever talked to her back then.
Recognizing someone from seven years ago isn’t that difficult. I recently ran into someone I went to high school with, and while we didn’t recognize each other right away, once some of the clues came together, I could see the girl I was only casually acquainted with.
We are both in our mid-forties, BTW, 25 years removed from high school.
