I forget

No, I don't mean simple every day stuff like where I put the keys or the mobile phone. I just forget - people, names and faces, events, happenings - I have absolutely no memory of it all. And to be honest, it can get very embarrassing.

Just the other day, I had gone to the LIC office. As soon as I approached the lady at the counter she asked me where I did my schooling. While I was kind of put off by the question, I still answered it. Turns out she was with me at school, just one year my junior. Worse still, she remembered - me, my name, what I did at school and various other things I had no recollection of. She started to reel out names, including my classmates, and still I didn't remember much. After a while I started to feel slightly uncomfortable, especially when she said something to the effect: we juniors always remember our seniors. Damn, I thought, even my mom remembers the people I studied with more than I do!

And this isn't the first time. About an year back I went to visit a friend. As I was climbing the stairs, a lady suddenly stops me and asks, aren't you so & so? And there she went again - on a nostalgic drive, while I stood there quietly, just nodding my head. She told me her name. A few hours later, bang! Everything had vanished into thin air. I didn't even remember her name.

That is not all. I am part of a mailing list of my school alumni - mostly a spectator than a participant. There is little I can do - people on the list remember things that happened in the school, people/students/teachers from the school - sometimes even 30 years after they had left the school. And I don't.

I have friends who quote dialogues from movies - verbatim and I just can't recall. Sometimes, I can't even figure out which movie they are talking about, even though it would be one I had watched multiple times.

A close friend says I have a 3-second, gold-fish like memory. He probably is right. I just don't remember - sometimes even things that occurred yesterday. Is this normal? I don't know. Others seem to have such an excellent memory and they can reminisce over everything. Me, even if I rack my brains, I am sure there will be precious little that will come out. Do I deliberately forget? Do I have a selective memory, a selective retention pattern? Is this just my survival instinct?

Does anybody feel the same?

Update: And then I see this. Aargh!!! What does that make me?