Without going into extreme detail, I've met 3 people recently who I had never seen before, ask me not only my first name, which seems normal enough, but their next question is "What's your last name?" I was talking about this with someone at church and no sooner did we finish talking about it, that the 3rd person to do it sat down next to me at dinner and those were the first two questions out of their mouth. The timing was an uncanny coincidence. Does this seem strange to you that people do that? If so, why? Does it bother you? Why or why not? To me, it's strange, and I'm tempted to ask, "Are you a private investigator? Police detective? Are you a designated church person whose job it is to run back ground checks on everybody that shows up at this church, behind their backs, so that you know if they are a convicted felon? (All three instances for me were at a church). It doesn't upset me as much as it's baffling to me. I know that some people voluntarily offer their first and last names upon first meeting, like two men shaking hands and one says, "Bob Jones." That's not the same thing cause it's voluntary, and that's not odd to me.
Are you in the small minority of people who care enough immediately up meeting someone the first time to ask their last name? Why do you do it? What are you going to do with that information? It's difficult enough for me to remember first names at church, so I don't clutter up my brain with their last name. I'll learn it eventually anyway if I attend long enough, through church directories, general discussion amongst attendees, prayer requests, class emails, class rolls, or printed on paper such as bulletins, committee lists, church newsletters, etc.
In a similar fashion, I've had people I just met ask me my name and phone number and watched them enter it into their cell phone, when I never have seen them before or since. Both times it was males in their 20s. I happen to be male and they didn't seem gay or hitting on me. Once was in a church singles group, and another was just a guy walking around near a campus when I was practicing guitar on the sidewalk and he stopped briefly and talked for less than 5 minutes about a certain presidential candidate. I could only imagine that one day they'd be delving into network marketing and in order to build their downline, they contact everyone they've ever met to try and talk them into selling Amway, or whatever. Why would anyone do that? It's just bizarre.
