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By the way ... 'Oops, sorry, wrong person'
This might sound like me making a public apology
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his might sound like me making a public apology. But this definitely is not me making excuses.
Sometimes, I can't remember my old friends' names when I bump into them on the street.
For one reason or another, I haven't met them for years.
Other times, however, I can remember their names ' but then I misidentify a perfect stranger as one of my friends. This leads to occasional embarrassing moments after I say 'hi' to someone who I reckon to be my friend and whose name I remember ' but who does not know me.
Double embarrassment is me not remembering someone's name, but still trying to approach someone I assume to be an old friend.
I decided to be more careful in greeting 'strangers' who I assumed I knew around a decade ago, after repeated embarrassing encounters.
In the early 2000s several years after graduation, I saw a girl who I thought was a high school friend at a cell phone market on Jl. Ir. H. Juanda in Bandung. We both went to the same high school in Jakarta before continuing our studies at different universities.
This girl was standing in front of a counter, accompanied by several friends.
Confidently ' and feeling excited in meeting an old friend ' I bumped into her and called her by name, saying 'Hey, Nahdia!'
She and her friends turned their heads and looked at me perplexedly, but still smiling.
Her friends immediately said in unison: 'It's her older sister!'
Aha, I thought. 'You look totally like her,' I said, embarrassed. She had the same haircut, a similar face.
The only difference was that the Nahdia I knew wore glasses and her sister did not. I thought maybe Nahdia had been wearing contact lenses.
I immediately made conversation to break the ice. 'So, how's Nahdia now? Send my hellos to her, would you?' And I left.
Another day, I went to Bandung Indah Plaza shopping center and thought I saw another mate from high school.
Without remembering his name, I said hello, and asked why he was in Bandung. After several questions, I got that strange, weird look saying, 'Do I know you?'
I immediately said sorry, goodbye and left.
Earlier this month, I saw a man I reckoned to be a university friend at Pejaten Village shopping center in South Jakarta. He was with his wife.
I had met him once sometime around 2009 at the same mall, when I was lucky enough to remember his 'real' name. But not this time.
I remembered him only by his nickname, 'Jempol' (thumb), a name that he picked up at university because every time he made an argument he always finished his line with the word jempol ' and an exclamation.
I knew that calling him with his nickname in front of his wife would be inappropriate.
So, in a spontaneous move and feeling half-assured, I lightly touched his back, without calling his name.
He turned around smiling, and said, 'Hey, where do you live now?' I immediately felt relieved because my assumption was true and we knew each other.
We had a very short conversation before he said goodbye. Only after he left could I recall his name.
This confusion apparently runs in the family. My four-year-old daughter also has had several moments where she's misidentified a person (me) that she thought she knew well.
Last year, me and my wife and my daughter went to separate prayer rooms at a mall for dusk prayers.
My daughter came out first and immediately ran to a man, who she called 'daddy' and whose leg she hugged.
I wasn't there yet to witness the incident, unfortunately. My wife told me about it. The man was around my height and wore a red polo shirt, blue jeans and glasses like me.
My wife immediately took our daughter's arms, telling her that man wasn't her dad, apologizing to the hapless gentleman.
'It's OK, mbak,' he said.
But it did not end there.
'Mbak, mbak,' a woman called to my wife, checking her out from head to toe. 'Are you sure you don't know my husband?' she said while pointing at her man ' who himself looked quite uncomfortable as my daughter held his leg and his wife scowled.
Misidentifying people happens a lot among kids, they say.
I wonder if I have passed on that particular gene to my daughter. I guess I'll just have to wait until she grows up to find out.
One thing is clear, however: Neither of us has the memory of an elephant.
' Mustaqim Adamrah
