A slight case of disrespect

June 17th, 2024

Once in a while, the same thing happens and makes me feel like I am being disrespectful towards another person. It happened again on Sunday. I was riding my bicycle in one direction when I was about to pass a runner going in the opposite direction when he looked at me, smiled, and waved. I was taken aback, since I didn't recognize him, but managed a wry smile and a slight nod. Obviously, that was somebody I used to know. Most likely we worked together here or there. His face was somewhat familiar to me, but no matter how I tried, I couldn't place him in any particular situation where we might have crossed paths, or remember his name.

There is a possibility that he was mistaken and thought of me as somebody else. That might be far-fetched, since I have a rather distinguished appearance and I am difficult to mistake for somebody else. Still, there might be a possibility that I have a doppelganger somewhere in my city, and that piques my curiosity. But there were other situations where it was definitely me that another person recognized and I didn't. Then, after the fact, there were questions— “Didn't you see me? Why did you walk away? Why didn't you wave back? Why didn't you stop to say hi?”. And there is nothing I can say that would make sense — I simply didn't recognize the face of the person waving to me or saying hi during a chance meeting. Of course, I recognize a lot of people — those who I am in constant contact with. But once that contact becomes infrequent, or I see that person rarely, then the familiarity of the face I see doesn't tell me anything about the name or places we might have in common. I feel bad about it and don't want my indifference to be misconstructed as disrespect. Still, there is something in my mind that prevents me from remembering the faces of other people. Fortunately, that is not something that comes with age — I remember that being an issue for many years now.