You look familiar...

Yesterday at church, a girl who just moved in to my ward said, "you look really familiar" after I introduced myself to her. She then said, "I think I remember you from camp." "Really?" "Are you a singer?" "Um, I guess so." "And you didn't talk one year*, and were in charge of campfire?" "WOAH! You're amazing!" While I don't expect people to have this level of neurological connection when they say, "you look really familiar," I am totally impressed by her.

A couple months ago I ran into someone from high school (I'll give you a nickel if you can tell me whether I recognized them or not.) They said, "you look really familiar." Then gave me three choices of how I could know them. Linfield College, Willamette Athletic Club, or some popular Christian church in town. When I said, unfortunately, I don't have any associations with any of those places, they offered up AHS. While I have no recall of this person, they were able to put two and two together. Through a process of elimination and some collaboration, together we were able to discover how they knew me.

The receptionist at the school I've been at for the last three weeks looks really familiar to me, but I cannot put her in to any sort of context that makes sense, so I haven't brought it up. That's how I roll. 

Let's contrast these with a woman I met today at work. She was subbing for a teacher in the building, and during afternoon recess, as I'm trying to check my email, she was just chatting away about a whole lotta nothin** at me (already I knew we were not about to be besties.) "You look really familiar," she said, and then nothing more, but just waited for me to recognize her. I said I didn't know her, as politely as possible, but again, homegirl over here was trying to read her email. She said she must know me, but again offered no context clues for how I might know her. She then asked me where in the district I usually sub. "Well, I do a lot at [specific middle school] and [specific high school] but other than that, it's pretty much all over. I've been here for three weeks." Then she really made me crazy. "So you like older kids more than younger kids." "I guess so. Little kids are cute, but they are a little needy." "That's what I love about them.*** You must not be a mom.**** You're at [specific middle school] a lot, do you know [person's name?]" "They work at [specific middle school]?" "No, he's an 8th grader." "Nope, I don't." (Because with 800+ students in the school, someone who occasionally subs there should know specific students? Who is this woman?) (Also, I'm still trying to read my email.)  She then went back to how she just has to know me, and waited for me to do the investigative legwork and offer up details about my life. (I'll give you another nickel if you can tell me whether or not I cared to do that. I'm already not the most forth-coming person ever, but if it's someone that I don't even want to be talking to... well goodnight and good luck.) Suffice it to say, the mystery of how codependent jerk wad knew me goes on unsolved. And if I ever see this woman again, (and recognize her - there's the rub) I'm going to walk the other way.

* I did a vocal fast for six weeks in high school, and that included a week at girls' camp. Yes, I didn't talk at all for six weeks.
** This was beyond small talk. I fine with, some pleasantries, but then let's just go our separate ways.
*** I wanted to say, "Ok, codependence."
**** Bitch.