I’m not memorable. I have to introduce myself regularly to people I’ve met before, and very few people I see often remember/know my name. If I wear glasses (I’ve worn contacts for years), people who have known me for decades have think I’m a stranger.
As well as being remembered by people I’ve met, I’m also regularly “remembered” by people I’ve never met. I’ve had people insist we’ve met and when they start discussing where they live/where they’ve been, it turns out that we could not have ever met.
My gf has asked me to stop (and I have), but when someone insisted they knew me I used to give them my prison exercise yard stare/glare and loudly whisper, “have you ever done time?” Shuts people right up, it does.
I am going to have to remember your snappy comeback when this happens to me again.
You could probably pull it off as a light, funny comment. When I say it the person becomes afraid, looks around for an exit, etc.
My gf says when I say it I look like a very pissed off Clint Eastwood in his prime.
Ha ha! I generally do come off as a bit of a jester most days.
That’s a sort of interesting reverse syndrome.
My wife suffers from it: she will occasionally ‘remember’ something that never happened.
A few times I have had to do some quite extensive research to find objective evidence to convince her that it didn’t happen (eg physical proof that we were somewhere else at the time).
Not quite remembering me but rather something I said…
Part of my job is to sit in on interviews and ask technical questions. Once a person has passed the technical part of the interview, I end with a very silly question to let the other interviewers know this candidate has passed. No silly question, they did not pass the technical portion of the interview.
After 10+ years of doing this, I passed through the break room and overheard a group of engineers comparing their silly questions from their interviews.
One of the best questions I was ever asked at an interview at first seemed like a really silly question but it was actually a really good question to test one’s analysis ability & I stole it & asked it to others in their interviews a few times.
In my experience, a lot of it just depends on how much you fit the typical prototype of people that frequent the place. I’m a woman in a male-dominated field, so a lot of times, people remember me after seeing me in a meeting because of course you’ll remember one of the four women more easily than one of the 25 men. But when I go somewhere that has plenty of women, like the dentist’s office or a restaurant, I am far less memorable.
I look like That Guy, You Know? and I feel like I blend into the background, so I’m always stunned when somebody recognizes me.
But then again…in Los Angeles, three years after I first met a favorite director of mine, I bumped into him again and when I said “You probably don’t remember…” he interjected with “I remember you. Not many people in this city talk as fast as you do.”
Exchanged pleasantries with one of the guests while leaving the venue at a comicon; three and a half years and a pandemic later, I was in line for his meet-and-greet at a different event in a different city, and he kept shooting weird glances my way. When I got to his table, he led with “Where do I know you from? This is driving me nuts.”
A guest at a tiny horror convention claimed she remembered me from a big convention fourteen years earlier, but I simply don’t believe her (gorgeous and crush-inspiring though she may have been).
From my end, I worked at a corner store in a well-to-do neighborhood while in high school. One day during the summer, a British fella came in and asked for a pack of blue Rothmans (cigarettes). A year later, he came in again, and god knows why, my memory decided to go strangely eidetic, and I asked him, “Blue Rothmans, right?”
On the other hand, I typically have to be introduced to someone a few times before their name has a chance of sticking.
The brain is weird, that’s all.
Heheh, I am bad at names, and really bad with faces. If I remember you, I’ve probably met you several times. If you change your hairdo, you can probably pull off fooling me into thinking you’re a new person.
I apparently am pretty memorable. When I was in a band that played regularly, I was recognized on the street fairly often. I’m also recognized at stores and stuff like that. Couple that with my complete inability at remembering anyone and the result is that I have had many, many conversations where I spend the whole time trying to remember who this person I am talking to is. If the clues from the conversation don’t make it apparent really quickly, I’ll often just apologize for my issues recognizing pretty much anyone and ask who they are.
I’m trying to go through life anonymously. Mostly i succeed.
I was a substitute teacher for a decade, in four different suburbs’ public school systems. I can’t go anywhere without a good chance of someone seeing me and calling out my name.
I remember having this realization as a child. I mean, not the exact date or anything, just the mind blown way it made me feel when it occurred to me. This subject (not my personal experience) would make an interesting thread.
As to the OP, I’m another who thinks they are probably remembered for their “unconventional” looks.