boxofdelights: (Default)
[personal profile] boxofdelights
Okay, first I have to tell you this story because it so perfectly epitomizes why I continually fail at making friends.

I was just at the library. There was a guy sitting just outside with two dogs, shepherd mixes, presumably waiting for a companion inside. Dogs and person looked approachable, so I approached, asking, "Can I say hi to your dogs?"

He said sure. While I was petting one dog, the other stuck his head inside my bookbag (which held chocolate and a bag of parmesan cheese, as well as books). The guy said, "That's the first Stone Lion bag I've seen in years, other than ours." (Fort Collins used to have a really good bookstore, called the Stone Lion, but it went out of business years ago.) I agreed that it was very old.

Then I said, "I think I've seen you walking these guys, across the street from my house?" And I told him where I lived. Which I suppose was a weird thing to say but: two GSD mixes, on pinch collars, one of them maybe GSD/Airedale but definitely some kind of terrier head on that shepherd body; they're recognizable. He agreed that they often walked their dogs there, I mentioned that I had three GSD mixes of my own, and we talked briefly but intensely about dogs, collars, clickers, under what circumstances one felt safe letting them off-lead, the differing difficulties of having young dogs or old ones. He asked, "Yours are all German Shepard mixes?" and I said "Yeah, uh, the young one is actually a German Shepherd/German Shepherd mix, in fact, a white German Shepherd. You've probably seen him at the front window, barking at every dog who walks by."

Then I said it was nice to meet him and told him my name, and he told me his (Paul). So, this is great, right? These people love dogs, and love books, and like to walk, and there's a lot of potential for friend-making there. Except. I wouldn't recognize him without the dogs.

Fear makes you stupid, you know? Or I mean it takes up enough of your processors that there's not much left over for learning. I'm so much less shy than I used to be, but still, face-to-face conversation with a stranger means a large portion of my brain will be occupied by FEAR and another large portion by TOLERATING THE FEAR and most of the rest will be busy with "Make eye contact. Maintain eye contact for normal-seeming amount of time. Do not stare. Do not start wondering which eye you should be looking at. Do not switch from eye to eye. Do not give up and make fake eye contact with some other part of their face. Coordinate eye contact with conversational turns. Is it your turn to talk? Do not leave too much of a gap. Do not blurt out something idiotic." And there's not much left over for, you know, seeing the person you're talking to. White male. My generation. Not fat or thin. I think he had a beard. And glasses. That's all I got.

Date: 2010-04-16 01:19 pm (UTC)
aedifica: Photo of purple yarrow flowers. (Achillea millefolium)
From: [personal profile] aedifica
Maybe next time you see him walking the dogs you can recognize him by the dogs and then look at his face?

Date: 2010-04-17 04:31 am (UTC)
firecat: damiel from wings of desire tasting blood on his fingers. text "i has a flavor!" (Default)
From: [personal profile] firecat
Oh yeah. I always remember dogs more readily than I remember the people associated with them. I'm not sure if it's because I'm afraid of talking to people and not dogs, or because I'd simply rather talk to dogs.

When talking to people, I mostly don't even remember that there are rules about eye contact.

When I encounter people out of their usual context, I do sometimes realize that I've seen then before, but I often don't remember what the context was. And I almost never remember their name until I've met them at least half a dozen times.

Date: 2010-04-16 04:47 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] randomdreams.livejournal.com
There are times when I don't recognize coworkers until I hear them speak, and I quite often completely fail to recognize people I've gone on multiple 100 mile bike rides with because they're wearing, y'know, pants not lycra.
You know his name and if you see him out walking the dogs you'll recognize them instantly. That's a lot of the game right there.

Date: 2010-04-16 05:26 am (UTC)
maribou: (Default)
From: [personal profile] maribou
I was going to say exactly that except with different examples. Despite the fact that I regularly call my faculty (at work) BY THE WRONG NAMES, they seem to get that I do know and like them, and even like me back. And while I think my face blindness used to be exacerbated by my social anxiety around having no #*$@( clue if I was following the right rules, it has stuck around no matter how little I feel socially anxious in a given meeting-people situation.

Date: 2010-04-16 09:00 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bibliofile.livejournal.com
Calling people by the wrong names happens, with or without the help of anxiety. A friend of mine even gets called the wrong name BY HIS MOTHER, but they were all okay with it. One of my exes was more irked when I mixed up names between the ex and the cat.

Seeing people out of context never helps, so if you don't recognize him without the dogs, I'd venture that it's perfectly okay to say so. Also, I too have been more familiar with the pet than its human. Dogs express their personalities so much more freely than humans do, they're easier to tell apart.

Date: 2010-04-16 12:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lookfar.livejournal.com
YOu know, I do that all the time and it's really telling. I call my son by my brother's name, and vice versa, I guess because they are both brothers of someone. And sometimes I call my husband by the wrong name, too, but I think he knows I recognize him.

Date: 2010-04-17 11:12 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] plasticsturgeon.livejournal.com
My mother not only calls my siblings and I by each others' names, but has occasionally called my sister and THE DOG by each other's names.

Date: 2010-04-16 05:51 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] rozasharn.livejournal.com
My shyness tends to lead me to not even look at people's faces.

Maybe it would help to cultivate a plausibly friendly response/recovery when people greet you, saying "Remember, we met the other day"? It wouldn't help you remember them, but if you can follow through gracefully, then the times when they recognize and greet you would still be possibilities.

Date: 2010-04-16 05:51 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] schemingreader.livejournal.com
I was just thinking that I hadn't seen you post in a long time and I wished you would!

You did a great job in this story, going over and saying friendly things to this fellow. It's rough, being shy. I'm not, particularly, but I wouldn't have found it a simple thing to go over and ask someone to pet their dogs. (Well, also I have to say, I'm a little more intimidated by strange dogs than strange people.

A lot of people have trouble remembering names, so perhaps if you see Paul again without the dogs, he'll come over and say "Hi Box of Delights! Oh, [pointing to self] Paul." You could potentially get around the face-recognition problem when he assumes you have a name-retrieval problem, since that's slightly more common.

Unasked-for advice

Date: 2010-04-16 12:53 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lookfar.livejournal.com
Sounds so stressful!

I'll tell you, though - as someone who really enjoys atypical people, I've been totes charmed by someone saying, "Hey, I can't remember faces at all, so next time you see me, will *you* come up and say hi?" It's so disarmingly sweet. Or even just, "I'm terribly shy, so will you wave madly when you see me again?"

Not everyone expects you to perform Proper Social Nuance. But they do like to know that you want to know them.

Date: 2010-04-16 02:40 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] wcg.livejournal.com
I hope he remembers at least as much about you. You're worth knowing.

Date: 2010-04-16 07:32 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] amaebi.livejournal.com
Well, I love you. And I have always found you an easy friend.

Date: 2010-04-16 11:17 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jinian.livejournal.com
It does sound frustrating, but the odds sound very good that he will be with the dogs when you see him next.

Date: 2010-04-17 11:17 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] plasticsturgeon.livejournal.com
I don't know--it sounds like you did really well there. Talking to people is hard, and so is recognizing them. I need to train myself out of my old habit of recognizing people by their hair, because now I'm in the city where there are a lot of women who change their hair completely every few weeks, with weaves or wigs or bleaching or just different colors.

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