A/S/L?

“Hi, I’m Scott,” followed by a handshake. In the previous weeks, I’ve been doing this pretty often. The process of meeting a person is one that always feels empty to me. Yeah, it’s great that your name is Rob or Amber, but that doesn’t tell me anything about you. Yes, it’s easy to use when trying to get someone’s attention. We might be thinking of all the other Dans, the other Emilys that we know, and correlating you with them. Then, later, we find out that Alex at this party is nothing like the Alex we know from work. Well then what was the purpose of learning the name first?

What’s the first thing we do when we can’t remember someone’s name, and we’re talking to someone else? “Well, remember that girl that I told you about at the soccer game? The blonde?” We immediately go into physical descriptions, or something based on the limited knowledge we have of the person. If we’re in a relaxed group, we might even use those as secondary classifications. She might just be Blonde Megan, and the other Megan is now Brunette Megan.

Why don’t we all just find a few things about ourselves that we can refer to in meeting someone. Sometimes we do that, anyway. If you’re at a party and you know you have a mutual friend with someone, then the greeting might be “I’m Scott, John’s friend from work.” Even better, though, just give them some idea of who you are. “I’m Scott, a student,” or “I’m Scott, I hope to be a teacher after I graduate,” or maybe even the daring “Hi, I’m Scott, and I collect information and make it my plaything.”

Oh, before you start, I know. You’re multifaceted, and you can’t express all of yourself in a single sentence. They might get the wrong idea of you, they might start thinking of other people they know who are like that, and you don’t want to be judged that way. Well then, Michelle, what happens when you find out that the person you’re talking to used to have a boss named Michelle who she hated? Is that really any better than introducing yourself along with the fact that you love dogs?

Sometimes it would be redundant to just list the same fact, and if you’re meeting multiple people at once, then you don’t want to say “I’m Lance, and I play the trumpet,” a dozen times in a row. If you’re at a trumpeters convention then you might want to have more information to give off the cuff, like how much you enjoy walking barefoot through grass or that you believe strongly in politically correct terminology.

“But Scott,” I hear you all thinking, “What if that person doesn’t like something that we strongly support? I don’t want to risk offending someone from the onset!” Well then, my otters, I’m afraid that you might have to hope that the people you’re dealing with don’t take themselves so seriously that they believe everyone on the planet is exactly like them. Or you could pick things that are relatively innocuous. Sure, new friend Tony might think that Nascar is terrible for the environment, but I don’t think he’s going to hate you forever just because you’re a member of the Church of Dale. And hell, it’ll lead to some interesting conversations, won’t it? “I’m an atheist,” is definitely more of a worthwhile conversation starter than “How about that crazy weather, huh?”

Hi, I’m Scott, and I write a blog on language. It’s nice to meet you.