You called me by name when I entered the room. You said, “Hi, Jorge.” (Let’s agree to call me Jorge, in order not to disclose my real name, which is Ted.) I, however—even though I know your name like the back of my hand—was just unsure enough that I couldn’t summon up the nerve to reciprocate like any decent human being. Rick? Rich? Dick? It’s one of those.
What if I said, “Hi, Dick,” and your name is Rick, and you thought I was calling you the male sexual organ? That wouldn’t be very nice of me. If that’s what I was doing.
Of course, I could have “fudged” the whole thing, and called you by some hyper-stylized one-size-fits-all version of your names, like the parody-French “Ree-SHAHR!” But who do I think you think I am? RuPaul?
The truth is I don’t look at the back of my hand all that often. Does any guy? Isn’t there something, I don’t know, effete about knowing the back of one’s hand a little too well? I could, if asked, probably draw a picture of the back of my hand, but it might not be accurate. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be the other hand. It would be the very hand with which I was drawing my hand. Who do I think I am? M.C. Escher?
As for a knowledge of the back of one’s hand being un-masculine, I’m aware the definition of masculine is shifting and has just shifted again while I wrote this sentence. So forget what I said about that.
Could you tell I wasn’t sure of your name when I replied, simply, “Hey, guy”? Did my eyes have that deer-in-the headlights look? Or did my non-name-saying come off as devil-may-care insouciance? Or were you silently saying to yourself, “That asshole doesn’t know my name—and probably doesn’t know the actual meaning of ‘insouciance,’ either”? How right you are/would be.
Let’s say I had the courage to say your name even though not 100% sure of it. And let’s, further, say that I got it wrong. I could give myself affirmations all day long that this was not “the end of the world.” I could pretend that you and everyone else in the room would judge me, not by that single (trivial) mistake, but by my lifetime of good works (which Ifully intend to get started on soon). But whom do I think I’m kidding? We all know there’d be no choice for me but to move to a leper colony. (Is that what lepers do? “Move”? Do they ship their furniture to the colony?)
I don’t have a blessed excuse for not knowing your name. We’ve met dozens of times. But you know what? Every single one of those dozens of times—let’s say 36 times—I lacked the complete sureness of your name that I prefer to have before addressing anyone by your name or any other. I’d rather risk a 100% chance that you feel awful I didn’t say your name than a 1% chance of me being wrong about something.
Selfish? Arguably. And yet, in a very real sense, isn’t it kind of your fault? You’re a quiet guy. When you say your own name, it’s hard to tell whether you’re saying Rick, Rich or Dick. Or even “Riff,” like from West Side Story. Also, your handwriting on your name tag could be clearer.
The worst thing about me not knowing your name is that you made me also not call the guy sitting next to you by name, even though I totally know his name. His name is Dave. See, I know it. But if I said, “Hi, Dave,” right after saying “Hey, guy” to you, the jig would be up, wouldn’t it? The whole “insouciance” thing—whatever that means–would be exposed as a tissue of lies.
I wonder if Kleenex ever considered calling Puffs’ claims a tissue of lies.
So look what you did. You made me not say Dave’s name, and he probably feels bad about that. Now I’m going to have to go to all the trouble of chatting him up in the pub later just so I have a reason to say his name. Just so he knows I know it. Not like with you, who has made so little an impression on me that I can’t be bothered to remember your name.
But wait. I can see that this isn’t fair. I should put the blame where it so clearly belongs, which is my parents. If they’d raised me to have more confidence, I’d have said your name boldly, despite only being 99.5% sure of it, and the devil take the hindmost! A phrase I may not be using correctly. But at least I know the right way to use “begs the question.”
In the end, as is so often the case, a mnemonic device is called for. And I think we all know the mnemonic device I’ll employ if your name is Dick. If your name is Rich, well, you seem at least not homeless, so that might work. If your name is Rick…I got nothin’. Well, wait. A “rick” is, like, a rack, right? As in “hay rick”? Or have people been saying “Hey, Rick!” all along and I’ve been getting that wrong, too?
But here’s a thought. Maybe you don’t hate me for not being cocksure of your name, Dick. Maybe you’ve occasionally had a moment when, like me, you weren’t completely certain of someone’s name, and rather than get it wrong, you said nothing at all, in order not to have to join a leper colony. Maybe we’ve all “been there.” (The name-not-knowing, not the leper colony.) Maybe I should “cut myself some slack.”
If someone didn’t address me by my name when I said his, I might not hate him forever. As a famous young lady once inquired, “What’s in a name?”
Julie something, right? Something like that.
