You’ll not stand out in any way. Your entire image is crafted to leave no lasting memory with anyone you encounter. You’re a rumor, recognizable only as deja vu and dismissed just as quickly…
Sunday, January 27th, 2008…You don’t exist; you were never even born. Anonymity is your name. Silence your native tongue. You’re no longer part of the System. You’re above the System. Over it. Beyond it. We’re “them.” We’re “they.” We are the Men in Black.
So one Friday night a little while ago there was a show I went to see my friend play. He normally plays a full band but this night he was doing it solo, which was something I haven’t experienced before. Seeing as how my quasi-date didn’t show, I went stag and just hung out with whoever I could.
I ended up sitting with a group of teachers, and to everyone I introduced myself. They introduced themselves, and we chatted on and off during the act beforehand. This other girl comes over, sits down and the introductions start, I don’t recognize her, so I introduce myself by saying “Hi I’m Angela” when it was logically my turn to speak. She just pulls a face, acts real cold, and says “Yea, I know.”
When I look at her really confused since it obviously would sound really rude to say that to someone who’s introducing themselves to you, she then continues with “I’m Natalya? We’ve met before.” What do you know, she’s the singer’s girlfriend. Oh. Well I do my normal apology for not recognizing her & all that. She turns away from me, ignores me, and starts chatting to someone else while I sort of just sit there & enjoy what I came to see.
Later as I’m leaving, I again apologize for not recognizing her, explain to her how I have a really bad time remembering/recognizing faces, and I’m sure she finds it frustrating and I understand. She goes into this tirade about how she doesn’t want me to apologize, but she basically repeats what I said. How it’s frustrating for her to always get introduced to by me and how I’m the only one who doesn’t remember who she is. And how we’ve met so many times before since I am very often a frequent visitor of her boyfriend’s shows and she’s always there have met her multiple times before.
For one thing, I only really even remember meeting her once before. And one of my friends who used to come to all his shows with me even said on more than one occasion “Where’s Natalya? She doesn’t come out enough!” And obviously if I’ve met her, it was probably for the ever brief 3 seconds of introducing myself and possibly apologizing for introducing myself to her again.
Seeing as how I’m never fond of getting lectured by people who I still don’t know, I told her exactly what I thought, in the nicest possible way. That there’s nothing really that makes me remember her. She’s an average, pretty, but average looking girl that could be passed off as anyone I see on the street. That I’ve never held any conversation with her or in any way connected and therefore don’t remember her ever since I’ve never spent any time with her. And that I do the same thing to people who are my friends who I’ve known for years as well.
What I didn’t say, and I feel I probably should have, is that every 5′8″ Blond hair’ed, blue eye’d 150lb white girl all look the same to me.
I’m sure by now I might finally remember who she is since all this happened. Although I’m tempted to introduce myself to her one more time, just to see what she says.
