Why does it seem that people know me more than I know them? It's so awkward when someone acts like they know me, and I have no idea who this person is or why they're suddenly my friend. It's like being a celebrity or something.
This story is not really one of those times, but it's related. I guess that makes the previous paragraph a poor introduction. All will be explained; Keep reading. I'll edit this before I post it and it will make sense, I swear.
I was at the mall in Kokomo today, and I walked into Hot Topic, and looked at all the edgy teen clothing I would never have had the courage or the cash to wear.
Sales Girl:
"how are you today?"
Me:
"Good/fine/customary semi-friendly mumbling"
"Hey, did you go to IWU?"
"Uh, yeah"
"We were in orientation and some computer class together. Carl?"
"Lindsay, right?"
"Yeah, do you still go there?"
(Insert short meaningless conversation, though we shared a spirited high-five for both being IWU dropouts)
The extent of our prior relationship goes like this: We were in a group of around ten people at IWU's freshman orientation, and we were in a class together. I think I talked to her on the way to chapel once. Later, I was bored one night and playing around with the school's computer network. I printed my phone number on someone's printer. It turned out to be hers. She called, we reminded each other who we were, and, I guess, talked a little bit. I certainly wouldn't have counted her among my friends.
Now, obviously I remembered this girl perfectly well, but I don't think I would have recognized her If she hadn't talked to me first. Why do people I barely knew two years ago recognize me today? Theories abound.
Lindsay looked exactly like a Hot Topic sales girl should look: funky black clothes and hair, a couple of lip piercings. You wouldn't peg her for an IWU student. She seemed a bit thinner than I remembered. Me, I never change. Same glasses, same hair (hard to change it when you have none), some days, even the same clothes. That's why I was at the mall, after all.
Do I leave an indelible impression on the people I meet? I know I'm striking, brilliant and witty, and those who have the honor of meeting me know what a once in a lifetime experience it is. No, that's not it. It's probably because I'm so funny looking. And to be honest, you humans, you all look alike to me.
Or do people just go around recognizing people all the time, and I'm the exception? The crippled social part of my brain displaces unimportant things like people's names in favor of trivia from 'Jeopardy', and I end up scrambling, doing secret detective work to find out something I should have asked for in the first place but now it's too late... I hope it doesn't make me look like an ass.
Perhaps it's context. How unlikely that we'd meet in small christian college, then meet again the next town over, me cleaning strangers' crap out of a corporation's cars, her selling mass-produced counter culture to high school kids less than a mile away. I think I can be excused for not expecting to meet this particular individual. Why, only moments before, I was thinking about how there was probably no one in this mall that I knew. Ever see someone you know in a completely different setting than you are accustomed to? It can be a shock.
I leave you with lyrics from the new Green Day album, American Idiot, which is really good and which you should go out and buy.
Thought I ran into you down on the street
Then it turned out to only be a dream
I made a point to burn all of the photographs
She went away and then I took a different path
I remember the face but I can't recall the name
Now I wonder how whatsername has been
Seems that she disappeared without a trace
Did she ever marry old whatsisface?
I made a point to burn all of the photographs
She went away and then I took a different path
I remember the face but I can't recall the name
Now I wonder how whatsername has been
