Introducing yourself

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So the other day, I was walking out of my apartment with a friend and we ran into a neighbor that I had never met. She introduced herself to me and we started talking. At that point I was extremely overwhelmed due to the fact that she came out of nowhere and struck up conversation. A minute or two later, my friend said "Well I'm [his name], and this is [my name], nice to meet you." I think I was supposed to be the one introducing my friend, not vice versa. It's not like I didn't want her to know who I was, I was so nervous that I lost all proper communication.

This is not the first time someone has "helped me" introduce myself to someone else. I don't know what it is, but I almost always forget to introduce myself to people, even when they just introduced themselves! I feel like a complete idiot when someone else has introduce me because I neglected to do so. When meeting someone new, introducing myself almost never comes to my mind!

I was so embarrassed after the fact. Thankfully my friend is pretty non judgmental, and understands my lack of social communication.

Does this happen to anyone else?

I hate meeting new people. I always do something wrong, and then usually forget their name.

Yeah, this can also happen to me. In my case however, I have had moments where someone would give me some sort of compliment whilst my attention was somewhere else and I just get caught off guard by it. It overwhelms me and I tend to make a face that then gets interpreted as angry while I'm actually really surprised. I just go silent then.

Yes I often forget a lot of these standard social niceties. But I try not to worry about it too much. Depending on where you live, people often don't really mind much if strict social rules aren't followed to the letter. The world is often quite a heterogenous place these days, and a universal code of etiquette can't easily be applied any more.

I have a standard social script for meeting new people. If I'm the one starting it, I just say, "Hello I'm StarTrekker it's very nice to meet you." My mother says this is too formal, but I don't know what else to say. Most of the time it comes out in a rushed single breath because I'm anxious, and then people look at me funny. If someone else introduces themselves to me, I wait until they ask my name, and give it to them, or until they say, "nice to meet you" in which case I reply, "likewise". Scripting isn't very flexible, but it helps me to maintain some semblance of normalcy without getting stuck or losing my speech.