[Belok]

I've always had a problem remembering peoples' names. Actors, historical figures, people I'm meeting for the first time, it doesnt matter. I will forget a name within 5 minutes of hearing/reading it if i dont make an extreme concious effort to burn it into my memory.

Examples

In any kind of social setting where I'll be talking to 10+ people over the course of a night, I will forget the name of every single person I talked to, unless they personally did something that stuck out in my head (and even then, i'd probably remember their face, but not their name). Literally five minutes after hearing "Hey, I'm Karen", I'm thinking "damnit, what was her name...I couldn't even guess...oh well, Ill fake it" and that's it. This will happen over and over.

Back when I was in school, I'd do pretty well at memorizing whatever random crap i had to for my classes...as long as too many names weren't involved. If they were, I was screwed and would probably not get better than a C.

Aside from a handful of celebrities, I can only have a conversation about some actor by referring to work they've been in. "Oh look! Thats the guy from Blade 2! ...No, not Denzel w...err...the black guy. The white guy in the truck. He was also in Boondock Saints..." And by the time somebody figures out what the [censored] i'm talking about, whatever I was originally trying to say is long forgotten.

I'd post this in Psychology, but that forum is swamped with "OMG how do i get motivated to play teh pokarrr" "why cant i get a gf" posts. Plus, I like you loungers. You're cool.

(Oh, and aside from names, my memory is pretty solid. Especially when it comes to poker stats/hands...numbers in general)


Anyway - is this a common thing? Does anybody else have to deal with a near inability to remember names? I can deal with it pretty decently, and fake it when I need to - but I can see how many lines of work would be completely cut off because of this.

I think its very likely I'm just a bit nutty...