I've somehow weirdly gone from being good with names to being bad with them, and I think this is probably right.
I grew up in a small community where everyone knew each other and, of course, knew everyone's names. When I moved out, I sort of assumed that I'm expected to know the name of everyone I've met (like I did before) and so I did. Over time I came to the realization that world is full of people I casually meet once or twice and then never see again. This completely changed my world view from "everyone you meet is super important" to "these people don't really matter that much". I think I went a little too far with this, because now I don't seem to remember even the names of people at my work who I meet occasionally, but not all the time. I sort of think along the lines "either they or me will move to some other job eventually and we will never see each other again so there's no point in trying to memorize their names".
I grew up in a small community where everyone knew each other and, of course, knew everyone's names. When I moved out, I sort of assumed that I'm expected to know the name of everyone I've met (like I did before) and so I did. Over time I came to the realization that world is full of people I casually meet once or twice and then never see again. This completely changed my world view from "everyone you meet is super important" to "these people don't really matter that much". I think I went a little too far with this, because now I don't seem to remember even the names of people at my work who I meet occasionally, but not all the time. I sort of think along the lines "either they or me will move to some other job eventually and we will never see each other again so there's no point in trying to memorize their names".