The older I get, the more my conversation is peppered with the phrase, “I can’t think of the name right now”, to which an old friend will always be able to reply, “That’s ok. I know who/what you mean.” The conversation will continue and perhaps even move on to other topics when suddenly one or the other of us will blurt out the name we couldn’t remember. Even though the name no longer has any connection to the conversation, we both immediately know why it was said, who it referred to, and can continue our current conversation without interruption.
Old friends mean you can be brain dead with some frequency and still have intelligent conversations because they will always know what you mean.