I make it a point to remember people’s names. I don’t get it right all the time, but I do my best since I know how warm it feels when somebody I’ve only met briefly remembers my name. It’s a good feeling — being remembered and being\u00a0acknowledged as an equal.<\/p>\n
~<\/p>\n
Someone in the International House at San Diego had their 21st birthday a couple of weeks ago.\u00a0“Have you said ‘happy birthday’ to ______ yet?” asked people passing by.\u00a0I never met the birthday girl, but I supposed this was the best time to say hello. It was the first week of school, and everybody was trying to meet each other anyway.<\/p>\n
I made my way to the birthday girl and introduced myself. Hi, I’m your neighbor, and I heard it was your birthday!<\/em>\u00a0She furrowed her eyebrows and gave me a limp handshake.\u00a0I wondered if I had said something wrong.<\/p>\n Less than thirty seconds later she introduces me to her sorority friends as “some random guy I don’t know.”<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Technically that’s true, but my blood started to boil over this title I was suddenly given.\u00a0I’m her neighbor!<\/em>\u00a0I said to the other girls. They gave me these cheery sorority grins and said\u00a0hi neighbor\u00a0<\/em>before heading off on their own way.<\/p>\n I walked out soon afterwards, rather bitter about the whole thing. This was such a small, insignificant interaction, and yet it provoked such a strong response.<\/p>\n Would the birthday girl have done the same if I were part of a fraternity and wearing my letters? Would she have done the same if I had stood a bit taller and kept my voice firmer?\u00a0A far more ridiculous, sinister voice then popped into my head — would she have done the same if I were some dashing, buff blonde guy with bulging biceps?<\/p>\n Who knows. Many people\u00a0I’ve met say she’s such a nice person, but wow, what a horrible first impression.<\/p>\n ~<\/p>\n I made a promise to myself that I’d never do that to anyone I meet — that even if I don’t know the person that well, I would never introduce them as\u00a0“some random guy\/girl I don’t know”, no matter who they are.<\/p>\n Pretty sure that’s basic human decency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I make it a point to remember people’s names. I don’t get it right all the time, but I do my best since I know how warm it feels when somebody I’ve only met briefly remembers my name. It’s a good feeling — being remembered and being\u00a0acknowledged as an equal. ~ Someone in the International … Continue reading “the wrong way to introduce someone”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-ucsd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3MSpn-nb","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1437"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1451,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1437\/revisions\/1451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wesleyschan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}