Isn’t that a great title?! My high school best friend used those 2 words in describing her approach to her birthday. You have to understand, first of all, that I’m a great believer in celebrating and especially celebrating birthdays. Thus the ‘selective amnesia’ struck a chord. It wasn’t associated with the word ‘celebrate’ but with the birthday number.
But… to definitions. Selective Amnesia is not forgetting or forgetfulness, nor any of the dementia/senility/alzheimer diseases – it is simply an excuse. However one of its values is that it is not age specific – anyone can use it!
Selective Amnesia is often used upon hearing the words… “Don’t you remember?” or “How could you forget?” And you can easily answer with a … “Goodness!” Which is not lying – lying is NOT permitted in Selective Amnesia. Goodness says absolutely nothing – it’s a neutral word. The really tricky part is what you say after ‘Goodness’.
The best approach to your follow-up is to say nothing. Or you can apologize, but you have to be careful here too because you can’t lie and say you forgot. Most of the time Selective Amnesia has nothing to do with forgetting. Most of the time it is a conscious decision to not do … whatever.
Perhaps somewhat tacky, but I typically say… “Goodness! Sorry if I upset you.”, unless I really don’t care that I upset the other person. Then again… if I don’t care then I probably wouldn’t have agreed in the first place to do whatever it was.
