We all are filling voids in someone’s story of life. You could be someone’s best friend, soulmate or love of life, until someone else better than you comes along to fill that void. Then you just become an ex, someone to remember for a while and then forgotten as time passes. Everyone in the world is replaceable, and looking at the current average attention span that this Gen Z has, I can safely bet that the time span to be replaced is reducing day by day.

Few days ago, I met a really cool person in a restaurant. We spoke for a while, exchanged IG handles, and promised to meet again, each thinking that this friendship will last long. By the next day, I had already forgotten about him and I’m assuming he felt the same because neither of us bothered to even send a DM. 

Nothing knocks you down a notch when you realize that you didn’t make much of an impression on a person. And yet, people forget each other all the time. It happens between the newest acquaintances and the oldest friends: Names, faces, occupations, birthdays, and promises evaporate so often that entire adult interactions can revolve around avoiding the awkwardness of a blank stare.

Forgetting someone is not unusual, in fact, it’s the most common feeling that you continue to experience throughout your life and sadly you cannot always blame it saying “it’s an early onset of amnesia”. Forgetting someone sends a message that we all dread: You simply weren’t interested in that person enough to remember them forever. When I say forgetting, I don’t usually refer to forgetting in an absolute sense when you encounter that person in public and keep wondering who the hell is this person. What we usually forget is the time spent with someone, things you did together, jokes you laughed at, hours you spoke on phone, you tend to forget these moments because either the jokes were not funny enough or you ended up finding someone else to laugh with. 

Forgetting is the rule, not an exception. We forget most of our past, I have lived on this planet for 40 years, that is 14600 days, 350400 hours, practically it’s not possible to even remember what happened all these days and it’s not even relevant. If I forget when I first started to talk or walk (as told by my mother) or which year I graduated high school, my world today is not going to crumble. 

But people over emphasize remembering things that are OK if you forget. For e.g. remembering anniversary dates, imagine you forget the marriage anniversary and have to sit through a long night of fighting and screaming by your wife because you forgot a date. What difference would it have made if she reminded you, then you wished, bought a belated gift and enjoyed a romantic date? I have seen people put this as an argument in divorce – “he never even remembered our anniversary date” as if having a good memory was a sign of eternal love. Remember, if you fail to remember someone’s favourite song or favourite dish, no one’s life will fall apart. 

Being forgotten is OK, the question we all should be asking is not why people forget but why people only remember certain things. As a person, we should strive to make our own life meaningful enough so that you don’t care when you are no longer filling someone’s void.