As a trainer in my restaurant I train several people every single week.
In the course of a year I would guess that I probably get to know about three to four hundred new people.
Some people you can meet once and remember them a few years later.
Some people you can work with very closely and not remember them the next year.
Source: Giphy.com
This is called selective memory and it's a function that your brain uses in order to only remember things that are the most important.
Now it is possible that every single memory is recorded somewhere....... but those memories might be farther down the memory line. The ones that are easiest to recall are the ones you need the most.
A few years ago I trained a girl named Kathy.
In the meantime I have trained several girls named Kathy that were not this girl.
Kathy came back to work with us again and she was very excited to hang out with me.
I don't remember much about this girl though.
It's strange because she's really pretty and really friendly.
Source: Giphy.com
It's also strange because I have a really incredible memory.
I rarely ever forget things.
However, I trained this girl several years ago and in the meantime I've probably trained about a thousand other people.
Since this girl didn't work out and we didn't even work the same shift after I trained her there was no need for me to retain the memory very closely.
After working with her for a few days I can see why I didn't remember her.
She seems nice enough but she's kind of boring and dull.
She always gives me the same greeting and has the same smile on her face.
There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that at all.
She's probably a great girlfriend to somebody but she's not leaving an impression on me.
If somebody was to ask me something about this girl I wouldn't be able to tell them anything because even though I work with her everyday now I don't know anything about her any more than I did last week.
It's unlikely I will know anything about her next year either unless I go out of my way to ask her to go somewhere or something like that.
Some people just don't leave a lasting impression.