Has this ever happened to you?
The other day I was with friends (English-speaking friends) and someone I had never met before joined us. She knew a few in our group and she said hello to them first and before my friends could introduce me, she turned to me and said, "Hello, my name is so-and-so, who are you?" It was said delightfully, you know, one adult to another but I totally choked on my words. Usually I'm with my kids or my husband and I'll say, "I'm Emi's mom" or "I'm Chikara's wife". Even introducing myself in Japanese is easy because there's form for that. Everyone in Japan introduces themselves the same way. I did manage to mumble my name out and I'm sure she didn't notice anything unusual but I felt like an idiot. Has it really been that long since I introduce myself to another English-speaking person? Grrr.
While I was reading one of my favorite blogs this morning, there was a post about appearing more confident at work and one of the points was about introducing yourself. It said simply to say, "Hi, my name is Sarah (my last name - not gonna write it here)" and then stop. Nothing else. Hopefully I can remember to do that the next time the opportunity arises.
2 comments:
Hi Sarah,
Thanks for the most recent comment on my blog. I am so terrible at responding to comments but I wanted to seize the opportunity to send you a message that I have procrastinated too long to do. Anyhow, you are a busy mommy so I will just cut and paste my response to your comment so you don' have to venture back over to my site:
"Sarah- you kindly advised me numerous times through my blog when Tomo was a baby and shortly after Reo was born. I don't think I fully appreciated and comprehended until long after. Have you ever read a book and knew the message was important but much later the meaning and the weight hit you much later? Your past comments are like that. Every so often I think of you "Ahhh- so that is what Sarah was saying, she was so right"! Thank-you for kindly sharing your lessons and patiently watching me learn them my self. I had imagined that you had given up on me and my thick skull by now :) You are a great Sempai Mama! I look forward to learning more from you as your little girls grow. Sorry for the much overdue show of gratitude. I have thought on numerous occasions to drop you a note to say this."
Shaking my head in agreement after reading your post. Because, I've had that happen before too Sarah. And you're right. Especially us living in Japan, we do like you said, "Hi I'm Branden's mom, or Noah's mom" yeah I get that totally. We get into a habit of not introducing ourselves directly but instead introducing our connection. "Emi's mom", "Chikara's wife" etc.
I've choked before with introductions too and felt like a great big dork afterwards.: ( The good thing is like you said, the person didn't notice. But yeah I do totally "get" this post.
Excellent post lady, I like the way your mind works!!! : )
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