While I was reading friends’ updates at Facebook today, something reminded me of a girl I knew back in high school. She went to my high school, and as far as I know she was in my graduating class. I didn’t meet her at school, though, and I don’t think our paths crossed there. I knew her from church. She introduced me to the guy who became my first husband (who she had dated in the recent past).
Now I’m driving myself nuts, because I absolutely cannot remember her name! I can see her face, plain as day. I remember that she had a somewhat uncommon last name. I think she had an older brother who had been a big deal on the football team a year or three ahead of us. Why can’t I remember her name?
I’m really bad with names, honestly. A Facebook application was asking me to verify 130+ people as high school classmates, and truly, I didn’t recognize many of them at all. I didn’t remember most of the people I saw at our five year reunion. After 25 years? I’m hopeless.
Maybe I should get my old yearbooks out and look at Facebook and the yearbooks at the same time. I don’t know that I’d be any better that way, either. I need context for most people—not just a face and a name, but also something like “that guy from homeroom who was always drawing cars in his notebooks” or “that soprano who bathed in Emeraude” or “the cute geeky drummer who seldom made eye contact with anybody” (okay, him I’d recognize, and I do remember his name).
Our yearbooks aren’t the sort that listed people’s activities with their photos. You would have to search through all the activity listings to find out who did what, which is much more annoying.