Names really haven’t been that important since Destiny’s Child broke up. Sure, we all went to high school, and by the time they stopped singing “Say My Name,” we already knew who the cool kids were (not us), and we already knew who the losers were (pretty much all of us… that’s what we get for singing “Say My Name”). Now, as a’10, I find myself hearing girls and guys of my class quoting the horrid Destiny’s Child song that, although it certainly causes some nostalgia from “the good ol’ days”, also makes me want to bash my head in with a pong paddle.

“Say my name?” “Do you know my name?” These are different derivations of the undying eternal question, “What’s my name?” This question, along with “Is there a God” and “What would you do for a Klondike bar” forms a triumvirate of questions that have plagued mankind since the invention of ice cream sandwiches. “Do you remember my name?” Honestly, who gives a shit?

I’m a freshman in college. I have just been thrown into an environment with about 40 people on my floor, 100 in my dorm, 400 in my cluster, and somewhere over 1000 in my grade. And that’s just the 10’s! I haven’t even started counting professors, advisors, and upperclassmen. How can you expect me to remember your name when, in my closest social group (i.e. the hamster cage construction known as my floor), I still have to check the cute little monopoly deeds that adorn the doors of the residents to make sure that I have the person’s name right? What makes you so damn special that I should remember your name and not the name of the people I’m actually living with?

It’s a given that no one really remembers names. Yet, sometimes at this school, I even forget my name. So far I’ve been introduced as anything from David to Dave to Goose to “the kid down the hall” to “the kid whose roommate found the fire in the trash can” to “his name is… what’s your name again?” Honestly, I have so many names with used by so many different people that I can’t keep track of them.

And then there are those who tell me their every nickname since the first day of kindergarten. “Oh, my name is Kat.” Okay, I’m pretty sure I have your name down, but only to find out that your name the next day is Katherine and it only changes to Kat when the correct instructions have been followed: just add Keystone. I much prefer the “hey buddy” system where everyone’s name is “man,” “buddy,” “bucko,” or, for those ambitious ones amongst you, “buckaroo.”

Then there’s the frat basement. Seriously, when “Sweet Home Alabama” is blaring from the loudspeakers, my mind is going to pick up the sweet song in the background, not the girl mumbling that her name is “Ally… with two l’s.” Speak up or don’t judge me for calling you Amanda. I got one letter right. You don’t have to get distressed. I don’t get sad when someone forgets my name. I don’t act like it’s the most disappointing thing to happen to me since I watched the movie Pauley Shore is Dead and found out that Pauley Shore wasn’t actually dead. You don’t need to act that way either.

Finally, there’s the whole “remember my name even though you’re drunk” idea. For some reason, girls seem to think that guys who are drunk and don’t remember their names are either 1) sketchy, 2) rapists, or 3) indifferent. They seem to think that if a guy doesn’t remember her name, he doesn’t care at all for her or the stories of Fifi - her favorite cat in the world who got run over by an ice cream truck, enjoying her last moments of life listening to the sweet sounds of little kids laughing. Guys probably care about Fifi - unless the girl’s just talking to a really big asshole. It’s just that there’s this chemical most people are pouring into their bodies as they converse in intellectual dialogues that is not exactly the best for remembering stuff.

Maybe if most people actually watched AlcoholEdu instead of running it in the background as they played Freecell and talked on AIM, they would know that alcohol alters a person’s memory by affecting his or her cerebral cortex. Or maybe it’s the brainstem. I don’t quite remember - I was facebooking. But the point is, don’t judge people for their alcohol-induced memory loss.

Most of us got into Dartmouth on some combination of intelligence, “special talents”, and general commonsense. We can’t be that stupid. Instead, we should give each other a break. We have a lot of names to remember, and the fact that many of us are drunk when we learn most names doesn’t help. We don’t need to make each other feel awkward when we don’t remember a name.

Sure, the world would be a mess if everyone went around saying, “Hey you!” But give me some time. I just got my frat names and Greek letters down. Keep reminding me of your name. I’m sure one day I’ll remember it. And if not, I can always introduce you to my friends as “that girl whose amazing wonder-cat got obliterated by an ice cream truck moving at a whopping three miles an hour.”