If there’s one thing this country loves to do, it’s bandy around the word ‘toxic,’ and I submit to you all that we have long overlooked a true source of toxicity: placing the effort to remember names squarely on other people instead of others taking it upon themselves to be goddamn interesting for a change. That’s why I have decided to unburden myself of the stress of feeling insecure that I can’t remember your names and put the blame squarely on you for boring me.
I searched my soul, and I realized something: I always remember the names of people who capture my attention or fascinate me. I met a guy named Garth at a party once who told me he accidentally set his nuts on fire after spilling kerosene on his pants, and then having his lighter explode when he took too big a rip out of a hot dog-shaped bong. Garth will live in my mind forever because they actually had an interesting story.
I’m no longer trying strategies from your fake self-help entrepreneurial garbage literature, suggesting that I just repeat some assholes dumb name enough until it sticks. I’m also finished with scurrying to my notes app to jot names down next to an identifiable feature. It’s time that we enter a new era where we all take accountability for ourselves, and we start with everyone developing a goddamn well-rounded personality that actually makes you memorable.
Don’t tell me about your job. Tell me about when an orca crushed your uncle to death at Sea World. Oh, that didn’t happen to you? Well, it happened to Quinn, a woman I met on a bus, whom I will never forget.
Oh, you’re new in town? How about instead, tell me about your birthmark that looks like Glenn Danzig.
You’re a big foodie? Maybe instead, tell me about when you were kidnapped for ransom and forced to learn how to cook for yourself because your captors had an EZ-Bake oven next to the radiator you were chained to?
From here on out, know this: I’m not playing your toxic games anymore. Get interesting. Do something worth remembering.
