I am naturally sociable and at ease in conversation with strangers. People regard me as confident and articulate. But I also have trouble with names and faces; both remembering and associating them. I will often fail to retain the name of someone I have just met, and I may not remember the face of someone I have met several times if I see them out of context; or may suddenly lose the name of someone I've known for ages.
At worst, this can come across as rude or snobbish. I fail to make introductions because I suddenly can't recall the name of the person I'm introducing and am obliged to loiter around for a verbal clue that will bring it back. And sometimes I just make a dick of myself.
Case in point: earlier in the year, at some drinks at Top Shelf, I was surprised to see someone I knew. "What are you doing here?" I asked, and then introduced him to the person I was with as John Kelcher, who works at Sound Archives (and is the former bass player of Sneaky Feelings). It was, in fact, John Collie, who works at Manukau Institute of Technology (and is the former drummer of Straitjacket Fits).
I've known both of them for years, and although they are both tallish and brown-haired and played in Flying Nun rock bands, there was really no excuse for mixing them up. And yet I crashed on, even as John tried gently to point out he wasn't who I'd introduced him as. I considered contacting John to apologise later, but I figured I'd see him again at some point.
And I'm sure I will tonight, as Straitjacket Fits are to receive the Legacy Award (from the hand of John Campbell!) at the New Zealand Music Awards, and will have their hits played in tribute by The Fast Women, a pick-up band led by Julia Deans. That should be fun.
Indeed, so should the whole thing. I'm due a night out, and there will be no blogging service from me tomorrow morning. Still better, we're having a Media7 production lunch today, which precludes me trying to fill my day with yet more work and/or obsessing about the presidential debate.
Meanwhile, the Economist's Global Electoral College is quite diverting. The idea is that registered users of the magazine's website "vote" for their US presidential candidate of choice and the total is calculated on an electoral-vote basis (New Zealand is allocated 8, China 1900).
At present, the total is: Obama 8459, McCain 16.
The only country where "voters" have unequivocally plumped for McCain is Georgia. New Zealand is running 82% Obama.
And here is Act's law and order policy, as marvelled at by Brian Rudman this morning. Zero tolerance for crime; a bit looser on spelling and grammar …