At cons I stare at name tags because I have the worst name- and facial-recognition you've ever encountered. If you catch me looking at your name tag for the fifth time, it's because I'm desperately trying to commit your last name to memory.
Replies
I have been involved in both renaissance festivals and science fiction conventions and cons are better because people wear name tags.
aug 30, 2025, 7:36 pm • 7 0 • view
I'm pretty good at faces, but names escape me all the time.
aug 30, 2025, 5:09 pm • 2 0 • view
I am the opposite LOL!
aug 30, 2025, 6:57 pm • 3 0 • view
Also, name tags bigger and worn higher up.
aug 30, 2025, 8:18 pm • 2 0 • view
Someone gave me a badge ribbon at Minicon: Hi! i don’t remember your name either And like that, my life was summed up in 7 words.
aug 30, 2025, 6:56 pm • 17 0 • view
I can't even keep my own kids straight half the time
aug 30, 2025, 8:36 pm • 3 0 • view
I need this but for everyday life
aug 30, 2025, 10:14 pm • 2 0 • view
I have the memory of a sieve. It's why I volunteered to paint custom badges (on wood with magnet backings!) for one of my local orgs, because only then will I permanently attach a name to a face. (I am, honestly, v happy to do these for literally anyone who asks. I can put pronouns on them too!)
aug 31, 2025, 1:05 am • 2 0 • view
I've got an appalling memory for names - which has got noticeably worse in the last few years - and name tags are a blessing to me! Especially if they use a reasonable font size...
aug 30, 2025, 8:17 pm • 3 0 • view
Yeah, I'm super bad at names and faces, as well. I hate the implicit mind-reading that goes with your quoted post. There are so many reasons why a person might look at a name badge and then not talk to that person. I dislike the lack of grace that this has at its core.
aug 31, 2025, 6:55 pm • 1 0 • view
People have complicated and busy lives, and complicated relationships, and differing levels of social anxiety. Some people really really don't want to talk to people they don't already know, but aren't certain they can recognize a face. This includes some powerful people who have social anxiety.
aug 31, 2025, 6:57 pm • 0 0 • view
I have the curse of remembering every face, but not the name it belongs to.
aug 30, 2025, 11:31 pm • 7 0 • view
Same. I try to be inconspicuous about it but I know I’m failing. I think the difference here is that once you’ve clocked who the person is, you respond like you’re delighted to see them and not like they’re something you accidentally stepped in.
aug 30, 2025, 5:34 pm • 4 0 • view
yeah I was just saying in the comments on the other thread, if I'm sraring at your nametag I'm trying to figure out of we've actually met before and how weird it's gonna be if I greet you all friendly-like
aug 30, 2025, 6:48 pm • 9 1 • view
Preach!
aug 30, 2025, 10:43 pm • 12 0 • view
I discovered when working at a bookstore that I remembered customers' names much better if I had to write them down (for preorder slips etc.). I could remember names and remember faces, but sometimes I would struggle to match the name to the face.
aug 30, 2025, 6:36 pm • 5 0 • view
Me all the time! It's a real problem! I will also see people out of context and get wildly confused. Gave my old GP the stinkeye because I couldn't figure out who she was or why I knew her at a roadside sandwich shop.
aug 30, 2025, 7:08 pm • 4 0 • view
P.S. I saw your post about people's handles, but didn't want to quote it into this thread. That, too.
aug 30, 2025, 7:16 pm • 1 0 • view
Oh, the people-out-of-context thing. I know I know them, but from where?
aug 30, 2025, 7:15 pm • 1 0 • view
This happens to me ALL the time 🙃 Like “do I know this random friendly person from somewhere, or is this interaction going to get weird?”
aug 30, 2025, 8:10 pm • 3 0 • view
OR like "am I going to be the weird one for going up to "Becky" and saying hi?"
aug 30, 2025, 8:12 pm • 2 0 • view
My brain has decided the distinguishing factor for people is hair. Because THAT never changes and no one else has similar hair. 🙄 Working late at the office during COVID I ran into a co-worker of 20 years. She'd changed her hair, & I didn't recognize her. The white guys all looked alike to me.
aug 30, 2025, 10:16 pm • 3 0 • view
I have to memorize over 100 names a school year while retaining the names of former students when I see them and I just can’t do it. I’m terrible at it because of my hamster level memory.
aug 30, 2025, 11:53 pm • 2 0 • view
We are one and the same the only thing I'm worse at than names is faces
aug 31, 2025, 11:55 pm • 2 0 • view
Prosopagnosic person very much empathizing.
aug 31, 2025, 11:57 pm • 2 0 • view
yep, also I often have trouble integrating online friends/handles/pen names with in-person people! Sometimes I'm even checking a face and badge against a social media account to see if Alice Smith is the same writer as Felicity Zeppelin or same tumblr user as frantic_potato_idol_99
aug 30, 2025, 7:02 pm • 10 0 • view
(and being a little surreptitious about it because I'm deeply embarrassed that I'm not 100% sure without checking, even though I think nothing of it when someone else is mixed up about me 😅)
aug 30, 2025, 7:02 pm • 7 0 • view
Your problem plus poor vision (even with glasses), so I have to get closer and stare longer. Awkward with women, given where name tags usually are. 😬
aug 30, 2025, 5:32 pm • 8 0 • view
Yeah, when I stare at name tags it's just because I'm anxious that I have incorrectly paired the tiny face from social media with the name in my head. (Though there are some cases where it's obvious the person you're talking to sees your name and checks out of conversation immediately.)
aug 30, 2025, 5:17 pm • 21 0 • view
When I go to a con now I wear a sticker with my avatar, because that's much more recognizable than my face. And I don't change my avatar.
aug 30, 2025, 7:16 pm • 11 0 • view
also, can we campaign to have tiny book covers printed on name tags at conventions, because THAT'S what I really have a great memory for.
aug 30, 2025, 5:18 pm • 24 0 • view
But then we'd have to choose which of our books to highlight...
aug 30, 2025, 9:14 pm • 0 0 • view
GENIUS!
aug 30, 2025, 5:53 pm • 3 0 • view
Sometimes I wonder if being famous (or at least recognizable in a community) is a bit like having a visible disability. People remember my wheelchair, and therefore me, at a MUCH higher rate than I ever remember them. They recognize me and start up convos while I scramble to recall names/contexts 🙈
aug 31, 2025, 4:17 am • 2 0 • view
I have blanked on the names of reviewers I've met and conversed with several times irl because all I could remember was their social media name handle and not their real name... 😭Honestly name tags should be mandatory at all events, as well as pictures of profile photos!
aug 30, 2025, 7:15 pm • 5 0 • view
At art shows, there really should be name tags with samples of people’s art on them! So many times I blank on artists’ names, and am vague on what they look like, but I’ll remember who they are instantly if I see their work: “OH RIGHT you’re the artist who made that cool thing! I love that thing!”
aug 30, 2025, 8:07 pm • 3 0 • view
Yes to this! My absolutely inability to remember an artist's name when I'm recommending their work to friends but I can see the art in detail in my head!
aug 31, 2025, 9:16 pm • 2 0 • view
My best practice is just to try to be nice to everybody I talk to. Hopefully they'll forgive my shoddy memory!
aug 31, 2025, 1:37 am • 4 0 • view
My brain stores names in one place and faces in another. I really benefit from labels. I can have dinner with you and clearly remember the entire conversation and still be staring at your badge for your name the next day. It's not because I don't know who you are, it's because the labeling
aug 30, 2025, 9:13 pm • 6 0 • view
Yes! Seeing folks "out of context" has me like oh no I have no idea who you are or how I know you when I run into a co-worker in the grocery store.
aug 30, 2025, 11:32 pm • 1 0 • view
system isn't working right.
aug 30, 2025, 9:13 pm • 5 0 • view
What if we just...didn't assume the worst of people doing something that is not overtly horrible. What if that.
aug 30, 2025, 6:29 pm • 46 1 • view
I’m kind of confused by this conversation because name tags are there so that you can read them and know who the person is?
aug 30, 2025, 7:11 pm • 12 0 • view
Some people don't understand why the same person might need to read their name tags multiple times in a single day.
aug 30, 2025, 8:09 pm • 3 0 • view
To be fair, I’ve had someone come up, take my name tag in their hands, squint at it, dismissively say “I never heard of you” and walk away. There’s a limit of how much grace to give that.
aug 30, 2025, 9:00 pm • 16 0 • view
Yeah, Fink followed up that the events in the sequence were more like that. Which makes sense and is indeed overtly horrible. Fink just did kind of a bad job of explaining the situation. This is also a sensitive issue for a lot of people with face blindness, specifically because of the conflation.
aug 30, 2025, 11:19 pm • 8 0 • view
I wasn't trying to say Fink's wrong, either. He just inspired me to talk about a problem I have.
aug 30, 2025, 11:29 pm • 5 0 • view
I did say "that's not overtly horrible"....
aug 30, 2025, 11:17 pm • 3 0 • view
But at that point you're not assuming anything about them. You know. And you also dodged a bullet not getting stuck talking to such a person.
aug 30, 2025, 9:24 pm • 20 0 • view
I was just at WorldCon and I was looking for people I had never met in real life. Some folks I recognise by sight like @scalzi.com or @nameshiv.bsky.social but I literally bumped into @sarahreesbrennan.bsky.social on an escalator and both of us recognised each other by name tags.
aug 30, 2025, 7:32 pm • 13 0 • view
But also that’s what name tags are for: to attach names and faces and reinforce that. I think imputing other motives to the common use of a very common object at conventions might be a reach.
aug 30, 2025, 7:34 pm • 14 0 • view
Also there was a person in the filk room who was sure she had met me and she seemed familiar to me too, but neither of us actually had been in the locales we thought we recognised each other from. Sometimes folks just are trying to sort out how they might know you.
aug 30, 2025, 7:37 pm • 10 0 • view
Most of the folks I was looking for were people I only knew previously from online like @pecunium.bsky.social and @princejvstin.com. And like if you just talk to folks you get to meet nifty people in line or prowling the booths like @ludibriumventis.bsky.social and her I Like Moss ribbons.
aug 30, 2025, 7:44 pm • 8 0 • view
Confession: I also use my ribbons to remember who I'VE met! (One would think, after literal decades of putting on events, that I would be good at that sort of thing, but... why are brains?)
aug 30, 2025, 8:52 pm • 10 0 • view
I like the form factor of the ribbons for multiple reasons.
aug 30, 2025, 9:08 pm • 4 0 • view
I am like this, as well - it's so frustrating. One of the things I am adamant about in namebadge design (when I'm in charge of or have any influence on them, at least) is that the part for the actual name is clear, and the font san-sarif and large enough to be read from 2m away.
aug 30, 2025, 8:49 pm • 5 0 • view
The one ad that ever made me think I might like Google Glasses was one where the person was at an event and their glasses popped up little nametags next to everybody. Would there be serious issues with the actual implementation, absolutely, but also... nametags! For everybody! WANT
aug 30, 2025, 7:33 pm • 3 0 • view
Same!!!
aug 30, 2025, 10:28 pm • 2 0 • view
This is part of why I wear my fancy vests, it helps folks spot and recognize me from a distance.
aug 30, 2025, 8:52 pm • 8 0 • view
Same. Terrified someone will think I am DOING A SNUB someday when it's simply my usual "failing to make eye contact, when am I Supposed to end this conversation, that feels like a Natural end, right? Ready Go, Don't Be Annoying, Self!" type of thing. I need some kind of Bad At Social Cues shirt.
aug 30, 2025, 5:04 pm • 26 0 • view
When I was in school, my mother had a button she wore to parent events that said “Don’t worry, I don’t remember your name either”
aug 30, 2025, 7:33 pm • 9 0 • view
I need one of those!!
aug 31, 2025, 12:52 am • 0 0 • view
For me, add to that auditory processing issue where I’m really not sure if people are done talking and I have to stare literally *at mouths* to make sure I’m not talking out of turn. I love Zoom so much for this alone. That little colored frame that tells me someone is still talking.
aug 30, 2025, 5:34 pm • 21 0 • view
Same but it's being super hard of hearing! Lots of reasons to find those cues incredibly useful
aug 30, 2025, 7:36 pm • 7 0 • view
Everyone should bring their dogs and cats. I always remember their names.
aug 30, 2025, 7:38 pm • 4 0 • view
If people aren’t wearing their name tags at an event, or if the tags are flipped around, I am SO LOST I cannot remember names for more than five minutes! Not even names of favorite artists! I’m pretty sure most people check name tags to make sure they get peoples’ names right?
aug 30, 2025, 8:02 pm • 2 0 • view
✋🏼Same
aug 31, 2025, 2:16 am • 1 0 • view
My memory is almost entirely visual based. Unless I literally imagine your name in giant glowing letters above your head like a video game, I will never remember your name. It’s why I love name tags.
aug 30, 2025, 5:19 pm • 11 0 • view
I stare at name tags because the best visual cue I have for you all is these tiny round pictures. No chance of recognising anyone by their face. 😂
aug 30, 2025, 6:27 pm • 9 0 • view
This might be the most relatable thing you've ever posted Names just go in one ear and out the other
aug 30, 2025, 5:18 pm • 18 0 • view
I try so hard! But I can't keep hold of them.
aug 31, 2025, 1:46 am • 2 0 • view
Omg yes, honestly social media made a huge difference for me because I could look their name and face.
aug 30, 2025, 10:40 pm • 3 0 • view
Right?? Still messed me up when people change their profile pics though 😂😂😂
aug 30, 2025, 10:54 pm • 6 0 • view
Yup or their names omg thats the absolute worst. New profile pic + a name change, I'm sunk 😂
aug 30, 2025, 10:56 pm • 5 0 • view
YUP
aug 30, 2025, 11:08 pm • 2 0 • view
And this is why I haven't changed my profile pic since 2018 (well, that and I'm too lazy to get new headshots done)
aug 30, 2025, 11:08 pm • 4 0 • view
I know I do want to change mine since I changed my hair color but at the same time its such a drastic change from the one, it'll confuse people for sure.
aug 30, 2025, 11:11 pm • 1 0 • view
The struggle is real I say, despite the fact that I actually haven't changed my hair colour since before the pandemic
aug 30, 2025, 11:13 pm • 1 0 • view
And I change mine every six months 😂
aug 30, 2025, 11:16 pm • 1 0 • view
I used to do red in the winter, to match my gorgeous red coat, but last time I did that I got bored of it in like three weeks so now it's all purple all the time
aug 30, 2025, 11:17 pm • 1 0 • view
Same
aug 30, 2025, 5:37 pm • 0 0 • view
I wish more situations in life involved name tags. It’s so much easier.
aug 30, 2025, 7:04 pm • 6 0 • view
I'm very good with faces, very terrible with names
aug 30, 2025, 6:57 pm • 14 0 • view
It presents a challenge when masked for group events. I know.
aug 30, 2025, 7:12 pm • 4 0 • view
Years ago, I worked in fiberoptic test & measurement. I'm pretty sure that I was the only woman with red hair in the whole industry. One conference had 500 attendees -- 5 women. At events, all the white guys would remember my name, while I was frantically squinting at their name tags.
aug 31, 2025, 12:57 am • 1 0 • view
As a person similarly afflicted and not the sharpest eyes, I would like to propose a rule for name tags/badges: Don't have them anywhere near boobs please. It's hard enough to try to decipher the name tag of somebody who just introduced themselves without wondering if they think I'm a pervert.
aug 31, 2025, 7:30 am • 0 0 • view
Sometimes I wish my friends would wear name tags
aug 31, 2025, 12:58 am • 3 0 • view
relatable
aug 30, 2025, 4:55 pm • 5 0 • view
I just find the idea of getting mad at writers reading very funny
aug 30, 2025, 6:52 pm • 80 1 • view
I can always count on you for the best take.
aug 31, 2025, 1:42 am • 8 0 • view
you only know it was shiv who said that because of the name tag
aug 31, 2025, 1:47 am • 5 0 • view
🤪
aug 31, 2025, 3:43 am • 0 0 • view
I’m abysmal with names UNLESS they came with a picture label. It doesn’t even have to be a picture of that face. I thought about putting my avatar on my worldcon badge (I should have, but printer issues), because if something like that helps me (and it would), then it would probably help others.
aug 30, 2025, 5:31 pm • 2 0 • view
literally yesterday while walking the dogs, I apologized to somebody for taking up the whole sidewalk because my pair were like "OH HELLO" and the person said "that's okay, I met these two the other day" and I had to SAY "I'm sorry, I have trouble recognizing people"
aug 30, 2025, 6:27 pm • 25 0 • view
Horse and dog people know this so well, TFW you remember the animal's name but not the person's name. "Oh, hello, Rover's mom!"
aug 30, 2025, 6:38 pm • 21 0 • view
There are a lot of dogs in the park I recognize, but the people accompanying them are a vague blur to me 🙃
aug 30, 2025, 8:12 pm • 5 0 • view
I had to actually say to a lady, whose dog's name I DID now, "now what is your name, I'm so sorry" but we both knew how funny that was
aug 30, 2025, 6:41 pm • 22 0 • view
I knew a dog for two years before I finally asked the owner his name.
aug 30, 2025, 10:45 pm • 31 0 • view
I have a neighbor's (assuming they still live in the area) phone number in my phone listed only as "Oliver's parents" because Oliver, who I believe was a golden retriever, had a summer of unrestrained escaping fun one year.
aug 30, 2025, 10:59 pm • 8 0 • view
One of the early Covid shutdown things around here was pedestrians taking over the side streets from cars and lots of people going for walks. I still don't know the names of most of the people on my block, but I know what their dogs look like.
aug 31, 2025, 12:43 am • 4 0 • view
Oh this is like being school gate friends and only knowing their kid’s names and finally having to admit after several months that you can’t remember their name but know their coffee order…
aug 31, 2025, 6:20 am • 3 0 • view
I've had co-workers for multiple years whose names I still don't know. And now the window for asking them without it being awkward has well and truly shut.
aug 31, 2025, 6:02 am • 4 0 • view
Say that you're having a small lottery for your birthday where you hand out small party favors, and you need everyone to put down their name and office and favorite color.
aug 31, 2025, 6:43 pm • 3 0 • view
(Sorry, got distracted and forgot the 😁😇)
aug 31, 2025, 6:44 pm • 2 0 • view
I've been exchanging pleasantries with this neighbor since our first doberman was growing up in 2009. I didn't ask her until we got the third 🫠
aug 30, 2025, 10:47 pm • 3 0 • view
(oh no I think I forgot it)
aug 30, 2025, 6:42 pm • 5 0 • view
I know, right? Unless you get in enough repetitions, it just keeps sliding right off. Hearing someone's name is not enough. I need to write it and say it to get more brain pathways.
aug 30, 2025, 6:44 pm • 3 0 • view
we don't see her often enough that it's ever mattered and I can safely wave and say "hi" without names coming into it, it's just EMBARASSING
aug 30, 2025, 6:56 pm • 4 0 • view
I hope it helps to know it's not just you.
aug 30, 2025, 6:58 pm • 5 0 • view
it does! thank you
aug 30, 2025, 7:07 pm • 3 0 • view
UPDATE: I remembered it again
aug 30, 2025, 9:44 pm • 3 0 • view