Brain Fart Solutions

Over the years I've given you all lots of useless tips and pieces of advice. Here's one more.

You know that awkward moment when you're in a crowded room full of people and don't know a few of their names? You know you're going to end up faking smiles and mumbling out something that resembles part of a name because you've met them before, but your brain farted when it came to their name. You're trying to think of how to fix this so you don't look stupid. You're in with a group of people you vaugely know, but whose names you can remember because you met them more than once. You're debating asking them what the names of the people you don't know are, but then you'd feel silly and are too embarrassed. Here's what you do.

Say the person whose name you want to remember is a male in a red shirt. He's standing just feet from you, but not close enough that he can hear your conversation. You glance at him sideways to make sure, then step in closer to your friends, go back to paying attention to their conversation, and then you casually say:

"Hey, I'll be back. I'm going to go grab another fruity little drink and say hi to Stephen on my way through. I haven't had a chance to talk to him yet. Do you want anything?"

And then they say:

"Who's Stephen?"

This is where it gets tricky, because you have to play this cooler than a The Band Perry song. (If you got that reference, two cookies for you.) You have to keep a poker face and act casual, your voice not wavering or showing signs of the awesome lie that's about to come out of your mouth. You take a deep breathe and say:

"The guy in the red shirt."

With this, you nonchalantly point in his direction, but not too much, because you don't want him to notice if he happens to glance your way. That would be awkward and hard to explain, and you don't want to have to do any explaining. This isn't I Love Lucy, and you do not have 'splainin to do.

Predictably, all of the people in your group will look at you funny, gasp and go:

"That's not Stephen. That's James."

Congratulations! You've gotten this far. Now this is the part where I need you to really, really listen to me, because it's about to get tight rope walking tricky. One wrong move and you're splat on the ground like a pancake. You need to pull out nothing short of an Oscar winning performance when you recite this next line. Are you ready?

You are?

This requires facial expressions, too, so I'll ask you again, are you ready?

Okay, I believe you this time. This is what you say:

"I don't know what guy in the red shirt you're looking at, but that's definitely Stephen."

This is where you give them all a weird look, ignore the looks their giving you, and then nonchalantly walk away and walk over to Stephen, who you now know is really James, and strike up a conversation with him. When the people you were talking to see you talking friendly with him, they'll all question if his name really is James or if you were right and it's Stephen. Not only do you not embarrass yourself, but you get one over on other people, too.

You're welcome.