this happened yesterday and i have been replaying it in my head every 11 minutes
so i (29f) had a dentist appointment for the first time in almost two years. not because i’m anti-dentist or anything, i just kept rescheduling because life got busy and then it became one of those shame tasks where the longer you avoid it, the more impossible it feels to do
anyway, i finally went
my dentist is this very nice older guy named Dr. Martin. he’s been my dentist since i was a teenager and has always been extremely calm and polite. the kind of man who says “little pinch” before doing something that is absolutely not a little pinch
important context, i had a baby last year
his name is Martin
not because of the dentist
my husband’s grandfather was named Martin and we both loved the name. normal family-name situation. completely unrelated to teeth
so i’m in the chair, wearing the little paper bib, trying to act like a grown adult while the hygienist scrapes my soul out through my gums
she’s making small talk and asks if anything changed since my last visit
i say “yeah, actually i had a baby”
she does the whole sweet reaction and asks his name
i say “Martin”
she pauses
not long. just enough
then she smiles and goes “oh wow, Dr. Martin is going to love that”
and i immediately realize how this sounds
i laughed and said “oh no, not because of him”
which, in hindsight, is one of the worst sentences i could have chosen
because now it sounds like i had considered naming my child after my dentist and wanted to clarify that i did not
she laughed politely and said “of course”
but it was not an “of course”
it was a dental office “of course”
a few minutes later Dr. Martin walks in
the hygienist, because apparently chaos is included in the cleaning, says:
“guess what she named her baby”
i wanted the chair to recline all the way into the earth
Dr. Martin looks at me, smiling, and says “oh?”
and i could have just said “family name” immediately
i could have been normal
instead, because my mouth was dry and my brain was offline, i said:
“Martin. but not after you.”
silence
just complete silence except for the tiny sink gurgling next to my face
then i added, for some insane reason:
“not that you wouldn’t be a good person to name a baby after”
why did i say that
why did i imply my dentist had been evaluated as baby-name material
Dr. Martin did this very gentle laugh and said “well, that’s good to know”
the hygienist turned away but i could see her shoulders moving
then he started checking my teeth like nothing had happened, which somehow made it worse because now this man’s fingers were in my mouth while we both had to live with the knowledge that i had just told him he was nameworthy but not selected
and because i was nervous, i kept trying to fix it
every time he asked me to bite down or turn my head, i would find a new way to make it worse
“it’s my husband’s family name”
normal
“we didn’t name him after any medical professional”
not normal
“i mean, we like you, obviously”
horrifying
at one point he said “you may feel some pressure” and i, fully panicking, said “yeah, emotionally too”
i don’t think he heard me
i hope he didn’t hear me
at the end of the appointment, he said “tell little Martin I said hello”
which was obviously a kind, harmless thing to say
but my brain interpreted it as “i will remember this forever”
then the receptionist asked if i wanted to schedule my next cleaning in six months
and i said yes because i am trying to be responsible
but now i have six months to decide if i need to switch dentists or bring my child in and somehow prove he was named after a dead relative and not the man who does my fillings
tl;dr: went to the dentist, mentioned my baby is named Martin, accidentally made my dentist Dr. Martin think there was a possibility my child was named after him, then spent the entire appointment making it worse while he had dental tools in my mouth