ask me my name

Clearly, my name's Gable. Table with a G. Not Gabby, Gabbi, short for Gabriella, not Gabriel. Gable. Yeah I know it's weird. It's a family name, and it might be one of the best conversation starters I've got. My name is one of my favorite things about me. I used to hate it because kids at school would be like "OHHH GAY BULL lol"... clearly it's hilarious when you're a 14 year old kid going through puberty... It's fun getting a conversation started simply by a name; for me it leads to my family and then my friends and blah blah blah we're chatting about who knows what. But the sad thing I realized the other day is that people these days (myself included) most of the time when a person who holds the door open, or welcomes you into your work building, or brings out your food, we don't even bother to ask what their name is.

Yesterday I got lost in a parking garage downtown that I was lucky enough to earn a keycard for, and by earn I mean work was tired of expensing my parking. Considering my awful luck with this stupid parking garage the first day (my card declined so I had to take a ticket, I got lost for 15 minutes trying to find my car, lost trying to figure my way out of the garage, and held up a line of 5 cars / made them reverse to let me out when my card wouldn't lift the gate, and the parking attendant gave me dirty faces manually lifting the gate for me in the rain), of course I got lost the second time. I literally ended up in an underground maze of cars, identical corners, creepy whistling workers, big cement walls, and virtually no exit.
After an elevator and two sets of stairs all leading me nowhere, I found a nice lady who looked like she knew where she was going, so I said "Can you help me get out of here." So this nice lady led me right back through my footprints of course, and to the elevator up to my exit into downtown civilization. As we walked and talked about the freezing weather, and which building we were headed to, I didn't even think about asking her name, I just continually thanked her for helping me find my way. So as I write this post, I can't help but think how silly it is that somebody went out of their way to help me find mine, and I can't even tell you her name.

I was watching this weeks episode of Girls, which is the reason why I am talking about this topic and why this is titled Ask Me My Name, aka the name of freakin' Mimi-Rose Howard's strange art show. Obviously Hannah, being the psycho she is, shows up at MRH's show with her rando date, clearly fucking everything up like usual, and long story short, ends up stuck on a basically date with her ex-bf's new gf. As the two are awkwardly hating life in the cab together, MRH asks the driver "Is your name Adeem" and then tells him that he has a beautiful name. The driver perks up and says thank you, and MRH sits back all happy and stuff. At first I was like ummm okay, and MRH is like hammering Hannah to get her to say what she thought of her show, and Hannah says "it was like Beyonce to me" which made me lol. But then a few minutes later she explains to Hannah what her "art" means.

After hitting an old lady with their cab, a stolen coconut popsicle, and a painfully awkward Adam convo, Mimi-Rose starts talking about a picture she saw from the 1940s, where this little girl was standing next to a row of soldiers, and the caption just said "Girl." At first I agreed with Hannah like wtf does this even have to do with the conversation, and then she says this:

"I think it's so easy for us to get wrapped up in ourselves, in our own lives that we just completely lose our empathy. We don't want to get to know other people, and I get it, it's easier to not ask and not tell, its easier not to know someone's name."

Mimi-Rose, this is probably the only time I will ever like you, except for when you say ya'll should just go to the bar and start drinking heavily. But really, it's so easy these days to just walk by a person, or just smile a thank you, or even just look at the ground to avoid eye-contact. But why do we do this? We're all guilty of it. We don't want to get to know random people, mainly because we are too busy worrying about ourselves. She's right. It's so much easier to not ask and not tell, because who knows what could happen or who the person could end up being and doing. Why don't we smile to the cute guy next to us on the elevator on the way to work and say "Hi, I'm Gable. What's your name?"

I don't know.

Maybe because we think it sounds stupid, or we feel weird being so friendly in a world that can feel not so friendly. At the end of the episode, Hannah is still wearing her Home-Depo-looking smock that reads "ask me my name," ordering a falafel sandwich and the cashier asks her name. Hannah gets all perky and is like "my name is Hannah, what is your name?!" He totally blows her off, obviously just asking for the order. Maybe that's why. Because we can feel good and perky about being friendly one second, and the next second we're like, well you were rude when I was nice so why even bother. But you know, if we don't even bother, then where's the opportunity at all?

So tomorrow, I have decided I'm going to take Mimi-Rose Howard's advice (as much as I despise her), and try to get to know a strangers name. Even if it's just name, what's the harm in that?