"Hi, my name is ___my eyes are up there ^^^, buddy!____"

I can see how steering at one's chest may make women uncomfortable.

Given how small the fonts often are in conference name badges, I tend to assume the badges serve some purpose I'm unaware of.

If you could figure out the privacy implications at a convention for facial recognition and memory... You'd have a head start on new privacy regulation.

This is so weird. It’s actually a good thing that people want to know and remember your name? “Openly staring” is such a weird way to put it like we’re supposed to pretend we’re not looking at the thing you wore specifically for people to look at.

It seems to me that what should be a simple aid to memory issues as well as meeting new people has been made fraught by anxieties from multiple directions. Of course, none of them are even worried about the most vital risk - being caught shape-shifting by not knowing a close friend.

I feel bad because my eyes aren't very good, and so even with glasses I might squint... I'm doing my best, and most people are also doing their best

To be honest I will always just be like “hold on let me look at your name tag I’m terrible with names and faces” cause why hide it!

My silly human party trick of remembering ABSOLUTELY EVERYONE disappeared after pregnancy + covid + perimenopause so now I just warn folks that I will ask multiple times, please bear with me.

Ok I read it again and I do get what he’s saying about people doing it just so they could decide if you were important enough to talk to - that’s very rude and annoying. Though I’m not sure how you’d know.

There are some people who are obvious with their intentions, or there's a pattern to their behavior. That said, people also have a tendency to project the most bad faith interpretations on others. I've seen a lot of nothing burger interactions get blown up over someone projecting.

They usually don't mind letting you know by namedropping and moving on with little social grace, tbh.

ime telepathy is usually inaccurate

Agreed. Sounds like partly a case of insecurity.

If they're so important why would you need to check their name tag? Wouldn't you know what they look like?

Writers aren't generally as well known by their faces as they are by their words.

That makes sense. But you'd think in those circles they'd have peeked at a book jacket now and then.

Yes, but those generic photos can be awfully unmemorable. I had occasion to visit my county's law library, and upon seeing that the reading room had a realistic fake fireplace flanked by wing-back chairs (which were very comfortable, by the way), my first thought was "Author photo backdrop!"

True true. I hope you snapped a pic!

Unfortunately, no.

Alas, maybe next time!

It is weird that anything more than a quick glance is considered rude.

I think it's the whole staring at someone's chest thing. A lot of events just don't have name tags to avoid that. When I was a town councillor there was a guy I spoke to regularly at council events whose name I'd forgot 2 years previously and I was too embarrassed to ask again. Normalise name tags!

Okay I keep seeing this and it’s because you have a thing in your chest that people are supposed to read. Can people be sensible for once. Or pin it to your shoulder.

I didn't say I agreed with this behaviour, I'm just saying it explains it. It's bloody childish. And the practice of "everyone introduce who they are at the start" is no help at all, I'm autistic, ADHD, *and* I've got MS now which fucks with my short term memory. I'll just read a chest tag if I can!

Popularize forehead nametags!

I didn’t say YOU agreed with it, and I didn’t say it was “childish” behavior. I actually understand where it comes from. But it’s still an easily solvable issue that doesn’t need any dramatic assumption of offense.

My eyes are up here.

Once at an academic conference with name tags that included what school you were from, a male friend said he felt like a woman: people were staring at his chest to decide if he was someone they were interested in talking to.