In my own little world...

Yesterday at work, I was moving a computer across the college campus I work at. I saw someone who looked kind of familiar, but I couldn't place her. As I got closer, I heard "hi, Anthony" - and realized it was the girlfriend of a good friend and coworker of mine. I've hung out with her a bunch of times, but still couldn't recognize her at 20 paces.

When I got to the office that the PC was bound for, I was talking to one of the other people who work in the office, a young woman who was in my college graduating class (and is now married...). She commented that she saw me at the college gym a few days ago. I didn't remember seeing her there. In fact, I've had a ton of people I work with tell me that they've seen me at the gym, and I've seldom noticed any of them. Hell, I've had a few say hi to me while I've been there, and it usually takes me a little while to figure out who they are and that they are talking to me.

Now, maybe the gym is a special case - between whatever crappy show is on the tv's above the cardio equipment, the gangsta rap blasting from my Zune, and the giant display on the Precor, telling me calories, miles, and other fascinating info, I tend to be in my own world. If anything, I think that's one of the things I like about going to the gym - I get to feel like I'm a part of something, like I'm mingling with other people, while still being in my own world.

But I'm no better in the real world, where people wear pants instead of gym shorts. I suck at remembering names, remembering faces, remembering people I've met.

I can't help but wonder how much impact this has had on my dating and career path, the two biggest things that I'm unhappy with in my life. On the former, remembering women I've met and being able to segway into conversation would certainly increase my likelyhood of getting somewhere date-wise, although I suspect that there are not a bunch of women just waiting for me to say "hey". In the the latter, being able to remember names and faces of coworkers better would certainly be useful. Luckily, since we have minimal turnover, I know most of my immediate coworkers quite well, but I'm not nearly so good with the end-users I deal with on a daily basis and see walking across campus. While these people probably won't change my career path, it would be nice to be able to say a name instead of just "hey" when I hear "hi, Anthony" from, say, a department secretary.

I'm not really sure how to improve this, either. I guess because I've never been a very social person, I've never bothered to develop the skills, or maybe I just never really cared or never got enough practice at it.

While I think I've got bigger problems than this, it is something I'd love to fix and I'm not sure how to.