You Want to Go Where No One Knows Your Name

Somewhere along the way, the overnight package delivery-person has learned your name. So has the woman in the make-believe costume creatively interpreting phone orders at the takeout counter of the Kashmiri /Bhutanese restaurant downstairs, as has the bank teller at the Village Savings & Loanshark, the letter carrier with a horseshoes approach to your mailbox, the neighborhood drycleaner, whose patent for a spot-disguiser is still pending, and the person who comes and affixes a boot to the rear tire of your car every few months as a friendly reminder that the municipal parking regulations are, in fact, not “suggestions.” These fellow citizens all greet you by name heartily, and have been doing so for the past eleven years.

You, on the other hand, have no clue what any of their names are. You may have known once, but this was in your youth when, frankly, you had nothing better to do.

Of course, there is no end to the techniques carefully honed over time to avoid the cumbersome task of ever actually having to say the other person’s name while giving every appearance that you have known it all along. These are deployed in response to certain verbal cues, such as “hello,” “how are you,” and “for the fun of it, why don’t you say my name for once?” The methods include: the fake coughing fit, the index finger gliding back and forth towards the throat like a neon sign advertising “laryngitis,” and the fainting spell.

Yet when these little ploys have been recycled so often and with such uniformity that every last ounce of credibility has been wrung from them, the question arises: at what point do you drop all pretense that you have the remotest idea as to what other people are called? After all, you only see them three or four times a week for a few awkward minutes a day. Hasn’t enough water flowed under the bridge at this juncture? When does it cease to make a difference whether you know that they know that you don’t know what is printed on their driver’s license, or their birth certificate or their Pulitzer Prize, and so forth?

Some guy in an article that appeared someplace says that after three years, you’re in the clear. If you haven’t learned another’s moniker by then, you can just forget it and not feel guilty or stupid or selfish or both. Certain social conventions, including, but not limited to, learning other people’s names and wearing matching socks turn out to be a waste of time in the end, because we’re all going to die, anyway, and do we really need the added pressure in the meantime?

Another thing is, did it ever occur to them that they are the ones who are being anti-social by not wearing labels? Yes, because passive-aggressive types want you to feel uncomfortable. Not to mention how many a/k/a’s are out there. It gives you a headache just to think about it.

Some people have very memorable names, and do not need to wear name-tags. Osama b. Laden, Barack H. Obama, Ehud Barak, Bernard Baruch, Baruch Spinoza, Engelbert Humperdinck, and Oprah are some examples. Everybody else ought to be required to help out by personally branding their sartorial splendor in some way. As long as they refuse to do so, though, it’s not your fault if you can only address them as “yuh.” See, e.g. “Hi-yuh,” “How yuh doin?” and “Good to see yuh; say hello to the people that you’re related to.”

If this is the least you can do, you needn’t feel the tiniest bit embarrassed about never learning someone else’s name. You have satisfied the minimum requirements of socially acceptable behavior.

At least, that’s what that lady who runs the bakery we’ve been frequenting for years says.