HEY YOU, DO YOU REMEMBER ME...

When undiagnosed insomnia hits, I turn to the good old ipod on very low volume for entertainment in the hopes that the soft sounds are comfortable enough and can fool my mind into believing it is tired and will eventually go to sleep. It does, sooner or later. Anyway, it was one of those nights a few days ago, and as I was forcing myself to sleep, Friday Night by The Darkness, whereby the very first line is "Hey you, do you remember me... I used to sit next to you in school" started playing (and all thoughts of having to sleep flew out of the window) and an idea hit me. So here I am, a few days later, recalling an incident that is slightly more than a year old.

It was early April of 2007, and one of my friends from school had invited us to her wedding dinner. Another friend of mine (whom I've kept in touch with since I left school ten years ago) was going so I went as well, hoping to catch up with some of the girls whom I haven't met since we all parted ways after secondary school (It was a girls school, hence the girls) Anyway, as we seated ourselves at a table where two of our ex-schoolmates were sitting, they got really excited seeing my friend (lets call her C), but never said a word to me until I introduced myself as myself. Apparently they couldn't recognise me.

Anyway, we were at the table, just the four of us, when another girl from school waltzed by with her husband and pulled a chair at our table (for herself, obviously) She hugged K and Int (the two girls) and chatted jovially with them before shaking C's hand in a very civil manner and mentioned C's name as though she was making sure. As expected, she merely nodded her head at me and sat down. C and I tried to recollect who the girl was, and the only thing I could remember was that she was in Moral class with us, her name forgotten because our school never had a yearbook. C had no recollection of her at all! It was one of the most awkward nights in my entire life, because even the girl who invited me to the dinner took awhile before she could recognise me. I wondered how could it possibly be that no one could recognise me and asked C, but she said I never changed much, but then again that's most probably because we see each other at least once a year during our unofficial gatherings over dinner and silly conversations with the 'gang'.

I kind of wonder how many of us actually remember every single person we've met in our entire lives regardless how brief it was. Or how many of us can place a name to the face. I can recall faces, but may have a bit of difficulty with names. It is terribly embarrasing to remember someone, and they have no recollection at all of you. It happened once several years ago where this person couldn't remember me at all despite the fact that were friends for about 5 years. Recently though I had someone add me as a friend on Facebook, and we share about 10 friends, which means I would have known him at some point or another (most probably primary school - which was about 16 years ago!), but as much as I try to recall, I can't seem to figure out who he is exactly. And the fact that he's most probably not using his real last name could also be a contributing factor!

PS: This post was written last night before I got a call from the new service provider. I took it this afternoon, and just to show how much I've missed having my own internet, I figured I might as well just throw in a video of The Darkness!