A few years ago, I ran into someone here in L.A. that knew me back when I lived in Austin. I didn't recognize him right away, so i played along for a while thinking it would come to me. It didn't, so I tried to keep the conversation vague. He didn't really offer any details himself, and then he left pretty quickly. That should have tipped me off. Then my ex-boyfriend reminded me, embarrassingly enough. "He was the guy you dated before me.

I think you went out a few times. He was a lawyer and really conservative…" Huh? My ex remembered the details more than I did? Now, I have a pretty horrible memory at times, but I'd like to think something that involves emotions, like dating, would cause me to recognize someone from my past. Maybe it's that I like to put the past behind me, or maybe I couldn't place someone from another part of my life (Austin) appearing in my current life (L.A.).

But many times, I don't. When I run into old college friends who want to update me on certain people we went to school with, or old work colleagues that have news on our co-workers, I have no recollection of who they're talking about. As you can imagine with online dating, this kind of forgetfulness made me nervous. I was constantly worried, since people join multiple sites and come and go often, that I would accidentally message somebody I'd already been out with.

To me, it's worse when someone doesn't remember dating you than when they are openly hostile. Luckily, this only happened once. I was emailing a guy (and I guess he decided to play along for a while) and I was excited about meeting him. Then he told me we'd already been out and there was no need to revisit the potential. Ouch. It's really quite disturbing. But apparently I wasn't paying enough attention to these men who came in and out of my life.