MEMORY LOSS
1 August 2006

I would like to think that when I tell someone something relatively personal that they will remember what I said. Lately I have increasingly experienced that this is not the case.

I recently went travelling in Morocco. On the day when I got my jabs I spoke to one of my colleagues – a keen traveller himself – about my upcoming trip. I remember how we vividly discussed first aid kits, vaccinations, travel bugs, bus travelling and other travel related things for about 20 minutes on an unusually quite April afternoon. Yet some weeks later when I was talking to colleague B about my upcoming trip, colleague A joined in and asked “oh, you’re going soon, where are you off to again?” I felt slightly puzzled but played along and told him my itinerary again, wondering if I have an equally weak memory myself which results in questioning people twice about the same thing…I certainly hope I do not.

Ironically enough I though the incident must have been a one-off but to my surprise some days later when I was chatting with colleague B and we started to talk about holidays he asked me “so where are you going on your holiday?” I told him I was actually going to Morocco and then he said “oh yeah, I believe you have told me that before”. Right. Thanks man. I did.

When I came back from Morocco both colleague A and B asked me where I had been. I thought they were joking having had some kind of access to my perplexity a month earlier. They were not joking.

Am I hypersensitive or do most people have a genuinely a bad memory? Do I have the right to expect that people remember what I tell them? Or do most people have far more important details to remember than where I go on holiday? I can not claim that my own memory is outstanding but I always ask people how it was in Spain, the Highlands or India. Am I just sensitive or is it indeed very disappointing when people do not remember a 20 minute or more conversation you have had with them?

At least it makes me appreciate when people actually do remember what I once told them. At times I wonder if people are worried that I get too close and invade their personal space when I refer to something that they once told me. So maybe people do not suffer memory loss and recall more than they necessarily want to show?