by Karen Cleveland
I’m terrible with names, so I don’t mind at all when I meet people and they don’t remember mine. Introductions can be so fast and fleeting that it can be difficult to catch who-is-who, or the proper pronunciation of someone’s name.

If you’re in that moment when the face looks familiar but the name just won’t come, you can’t go wrong with simply re-introducing yourself. It instantly puts everyone at ease.

If you like, you can further soften the situation by making a quick self-deprecating joke, along the lines of “ever since I turned 20/was dropped as a child/took up contraband substances/etc/ my memory is horrible. Can I reintroduce myself?”

Even if you’re 90 per cent sure, avoid the guessing game that can endlessly gone on and on: abstain from taking stabs in the dark of “I think we met X, or at that XD, or did you work at X? Wait, was it the X?”. By the time that goes on for 10 minutes (and you’re repeatedly dead wrong), they might not want to be reintroduced to you after all.