A woman came to my parents’ house once and was squealingly disbelieving that I didn’t remember her. I’d been less than a year old when we’d “met”.
Also, and I think I’ve told this before, an EMT once said “Remember me?” Well, not really; there was the little matter of my being semi-conscious during our encounter.
Heh. My gf asked me if I didn’t recognize the woman because she had her clothes on. :eek:
Awesome reply. That’s a reply I would think, but probably would never actually say.
When I’m in a situation similar to the lady in your OP, I always assume that not everyone remembers me (because I, too, can be awful at remembering people. Well, names moreso than the individuals themselves) and re-introduce myself, usually with a “Hi, I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Peter and we met, yaddayaddayadda.” The worst that could happen is they reply “Of course I remember you!” I hate it when people you met once or twice pull the shit in the OP on you, and you’re there stuck going through your mental Rolodex, buying time by making general conversation while your brain frantically tries to retrieve the relevant information.
I’ve on at least two occasions had extended 15-minute or so conversations with someone who obviously knew me and who I had no clue as to the identity of. It’s surprising how far generic conversation can take you. These days, I just cop to it right up front. The problem is, once you go more than a minute or two into the conversation and you can’t figure out who you’re talking to, it’s gotten too awkward to ask at that point.
I just tell people I suffer from a chronic illness which affects my memory. It’s kind of true but I also just have a really bad memory for names and faces and things and events and …
What were we talking about again?
Do you have facebook? You could look up the woman’s name and see if you have any mutual friends.
When I was younger, my friends and i would amuse ourselves by going up to strangers and acting like we were long lost best friends with them just to watch the befuddled reactions as they tried to figure out who they hell we were and how we might know them. 
This game is especially fun if you’re in a situation where people wear nametags.
Well done OP, it’s either that or a falt out, “I’m sorry but who are you?”
Never offended anyone I’ve told, but is fun to see the reactions. 
I have a story along these lines. In college I was walking past the bookstore and a guy came over and started talking to me. I for the life of me could not remember who this guy was, but after a short bit of conversation he asked if I could watch his bike while he went into the bookstore. I felt weird watching over what I thought was a complete stranger’s bike. He came back and then we parted ways, me still having no clue who this guy was.
It was only months later when I ran into him again that it finally clicked with me. We’d had one class together the previous year and somehow he recognized me.
This sort of thing happened to me in college pretty often, actually. People from high school would recognize me, and I’d have no recollection of them whatsoever. I don’t think I’m a remarkably memorable person so I must be pretty bad at remembering people.
… turns out I was married to her for 17 years and we had 2 kids but I had my memory erased by a secret government agency.
BINGO. I do know her. Possibly spoke face to face once, at a Halloween party where everyone was drunk and in costume.
Her facebook page was not a help, but it led to her husbands facebook page. And he is friends with the guy who had the Halloween party last year. (It was an awesome party, held in a barn, with fog, strobe lights, gruesome dioramas depicting murders, etc.)
Thanks for the idea, prettydorky!!
I walked in to work one day shortly after we had hired a new receptionist. As I was walking past the reception desk, she stopped me and asked “Are you…?” and used a nickname that only very close friends of mine from college would have known. Now, I’m pretty good with faces but can’t always remember names, and I was pretty sure I had never seen this woman in my life before she started working for us. So I said “Yeaahhh…” and chatted with her for a bit while my brain furiously tried to place her.
Turns out that her boyfriend was an old friend from college, who I had lost touch with over the years. He had seen me walking out of the building the night before when he came to pick her up, and put her up to it.
I have an awkward situation with one of the librarians at the local library. There are three librarians and I’m very friendly with all of them. I know two of them by name. The third? I can’t remember it. I JUST CAN’T REMEMBER IT. I knew it at one point, but now it’s gone. We talk all the time, and I can’t tell you what her name is.
I thought it would eventually come back to me, but it hasn’t.
How in the world do I gracefully find the name out of someone I’ve talked to once or twice a week for, I dunno, three years?
Has she done time? I’m thinking you could buy her a soft drink, then sneak away with the can. Have it checked for prints/DNA.
I’m horrible about this, too, and now that I work in one of the few metaphysical shops in my town it’s going to just get worse as I start running into people I’m supposed to know at festivals and vice-verse. I already have people walking up to me telling me stories about 'so-and-so who got married last fall and now they have a kid and isn’t it amazing how fast they all grow up and do you remember whatsit who went to that one festival and met blah-blah…" Right now I just smile politely and agree. I have a vague idea who you are, lady, and zero idea who these people are. Apparently I’m good at the congenial agreement look. Hell, just last weekend it took me 10 minutes to recognize someone I know fairly well because we serve on the same festival committee.
It’s not just old age, I’ve been like this my whole life. It’s like someone upthread said, it takes weeks of fairly constant interaction to remember what name goes with what face. I have a co-worker whom I like very much but whose name falls right out of my head whenever I go to mention her to someone. Crazy.