After forgetting the name of a hallmate from freshman year, engineering student Bryce Davis defused mounting social tension by assuring everyone that he is just bad with names and unremarkable people.
“Ah shoot, could you remind me one more time?” said Davis to the vaguely familiar stranger who had stopped him in the diag just moments earlier. “Evan! Ah! It was right on the tip of my tongue. My bad, man, really. I just have trouble putting names to faces and wholly underwhelming personalities, ya know?”
The student in question, junior Evan Reeves, whose short undercut and membership in the service organization Circle K has left him without a single noteworthy physical attribute or character trait, expressed relief.
“For a moment there it was weird. Like, how could he forget my name? I’m the one who had the ‘Pulp Fiction’ poster above my bed!” said Destin. “But after he explained his difficulty keeping names straight, and how many other empty sacks of flesh with no discernable role to play in this world he’d met over the years, I couldn’t help but laugh it off.”
“Usually I let people whose utter lack of charisma predisposes them to anonymity know I’m bad with names right off the bat,” said Davis. “That way they aren’t caught off guard when they wave to me on campus and I stare at them blankly like the stock footage of my consciousness they are.”
“So I really feel bad about this whole thing with Devin,” he added.
