Don’t I Know You?

The other day when I was at work, I was walking past the receptionist’s desk when someone said to me, “Oh hey! I didn’t know you worked here! What’s up?” And me, being the clever person that I am, stared blankly at her and responded with, “Uh, hi! Yeah, I work here. How are you?” I managed to make a quick escape by excusing myself to make some photocopies¹, but I couldn’t figure out how I knew this girl.

Half an hour later, I finally solved the mystery. I shared one of my classes with her, but as she sits behind me every single class, I only hear her voice during the class discussions, and I never see her face. I felt bad for not recognizing her at once when I saw her, but it took me a while to figure out how I knew her. Still, I hope that I managed to act like I knew her immediately, and that I recovered from my initial “Wait, who is this girl and how do I know her?!” reaction and covered it with the assumption that sooner or later, I’d figure out how I knew her, so I may as well pretend that I remembered how I knew her when talking. I hate it when I am caught off guard whenever I bump into people I know, I always feel really awkward for not knowing who they are and am unsure of what to say when talking to them!

Question of the Week: When you see someone that knows you but you don’t recognize them, how do you react?

1. I work as an office assistant, so the photocopier and I are the best of friends. [↩]

Cross-posted from breakthesky.net. Please leave any comments there.