I read this article and thought, oh, hey, great, a way to recall names when I’m meeting people — I’m pretty terrible at it.
“It’s a major faux pas to forget someone’s name — it makes people feel like they have been slighted or marginalised or unimportant,” says Kethera A Fogler, an assistant professor in psychology at James Madison University in Virginia in the US. “Their name is so uniquely them, which exacerbates that feeling, but it’s what makes it so easy to forget.”
I had heard about this technique a long time ago — focus on the name, say it again, associate it, say it again in conversation, but it’s really hard to practice and implement. The stuttering is so strong — the distracting thoughts, that is. I am always so, so, so focused on freaking out and what it’s going to be like to say — or not — my own name. And then when the other person starts talking, I’m so drained to pay attention.
And then, and then! What happens? Oh, right, I’ve stuttered out my name, so after a bit the person comes back and asks me what it is again. We went through this!
So, instead of thinking about this article for myself and fellow people who stutter as a technique to learn other people’s names, let’s share this article with our own friends in the hope that they send it around so much that our names are actually remembered the next time we spend so much energy stuttering them out.
Hello. I stutter. 