The solution for when you don't recognize someone

It happens to me at least once a week. I see a familiar face, and there’s something with a bell and a clock, but further… no idea. That’s what you get when you’re older and a lot of people have crossed your path. Exercising in different places doesn’t help either. And when people move from section A (I know someone from the barre class) to section B (“suddenly” I see that person at a restaurant in Artis) I totally block. Once, I handed a box of wine to Beau van Erven Dorens a sports colleague who was walking in the hallway of restaurant De Plantage by Artis. My husband makes the show Beau and for his last episode of the season, I was supposed to bring a box of wine. Of course, I was in a hurry, my car was double-parked in front of the door, and I ran into the hall on my heels. The first familiar face had to be someone who worked there, so off I went, handing over that box. It turned out to be a sports celebrity who was just having lunch with a friend in the restaurant next to the TV studio.

That happens to me more and more often. This morning again in the pilates studio. A familiar face. “You live in Bentveld, right?” I thought: if I hit bingo here, I can fill in the rest of the list. Then it’s that tech entrepreneur I met a year ago at that Masters of Luxury lunch. “No, Kleverpark.” She said it in a tone that suggested we had talked about this before. Kleverpárk. As in: you know.
But I didn’t know. The worst part is when you feel that the other person has strung the beads together and seems to take pleasure in seeing you struggle.

For me, it goes like this.
“How’s it going? Still busy?”
And I think: give me a hint, a hint, a hint!
“Did you have a nice getaway during the autumn break?”
“Were you in the summer, uh…”
And now just hope they will fill it in.
“Long time no see.”
And then just hope very hard that it actually has been a long time since you saw each other.
“Sorry, I can’t quite remember your name right now.”
That will have to do. Because nothing is more embarrassing than having to say halfway through such a conversation that you don’t know who you’re talking to.

Shall we just agree on one thing? That as soon as you see someone struggling, and you know who they are, you immediately clarify where you know each other from?
That would make me SO happy.