Ah, You Know Him

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Alice mentions Bob. Carol has an extreme reaction (usually rage or dread), or asks a very uncomplimentary question about Bob. Alice asks "Ah... so you know him?", or "Ah, you two met before", or something to this end.

The variant with Carol actually running into Bob and reacting directly seems to happen less often, but works exactly the same way, except usually it's also awkward for Bob. See also: "You!"

Examples of Ah, You Know Him include:

Literature

  • Chris Hadfield's memoir An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth has a Real Life example in chapter 5. (The person's name was left out of the book, for obvious reasons.)

Once, flying up to Washington in a NASA jet, I stopped to refuel and a military guy I'd never met before noticed the plane and said "Hey, do you know _____? What an asshole!" It was striking: of all the things he might have said to me on first meeting, his low opinion of that astronaut was the most pressing. I just said, "Wow. You've met him."

Web Comics

Web Original