I don't recognise people

[GilmoreMe]

I've always been the same, I don't recognise people's faces if they're not where I expect them to be.
People have always thought me rude and stand offish because I ignore them but actually I simply haven't realised it was them. On a day out in London a couple stopped and spoke to my husband and me and were really friendly and it took them mentioning my brother and sister in law for me to realise they were her parents - who I've known for about 11 years and met countless times. Scenarios like this happen all the time and I never ever recognise people on TV if they're on a different programme as a different character.
Is this a thing? Or just me?

I have this to an extent. I can only recognise people in context (except family). Watching tv if a character changes clothes I have to ask dh who they are. I didn’t know it was a thing!

I have this to an extent and so does my ASD son. At work I can struggle to know who everyone is. I have learnt to compensate and use techniques to help me remember people. It still doesn't help if I meet them out of context though or if they drastically change their hairstyle.

My husband on the other hand is pretty good at remembering everyone and my other two children take after him.

I do this all the time. I was at an even this week where there were many people I’d met before. I was so anxious as I knew I wouldn’t recognise people and they’d think I was rude.

It’s horrible.

I have it mildly, I think though it’s happened more than I realised. A woman came up to me in a pub, she mentioned my brother, I thought they were friends. Later I saw her at my father’s funeral and recognised her as the woman in the pub. Later at the wake she spoke to me and instantly I realised it was my cousin. She has a distinctive voice and I don’t know why I didn’t recognise her voice before. It’s weird and embarrassing.

I also can’t picture things in my mind. Perhaps it’s related? my mum has this and she is in her 60’s and didn’t realise that most people have a ‘minds eye’ and can picture things until a few weeks ago I picked a dress for my daughter and I said I could picture her wearing it. She was utterly confused.

I have it too :(

I really struggle to recognise non-distinctive people if I don’t know W them well, and even if they do if they’ve had their haircut or have changed their coat colour. It makes it really hard to talk to people when you either can’t remember them, or you remember them a bit, but can’t be sure if it is them or a stranger. Most of the time there are work arounds, but sometimes I have really embarrassed myself.

And yes to the minds eye too. I hope I never have to describe someone to the police. I would be worse than useless.

I wish there was a way to get diagnosed so I could be confident telling people “I’m sorry, I don’t recognise you as I have propagnosia, please can you remind me who you are?” Which would hopefully make people much more understanding than I ‘think’ I have it, which just sounds like I am making up an excuse for rudeness.

I recognise people but can't instantly attach the right name to them. Does that make sense? It's like their name is a Post-it note that keeps falling off. I have the same thing with left and right.

I don't know if it's related but I can never recognise if people are twins or not unless they are 100% identical.

Me too, I am autistic also. I can know I recognise someone but it is like the information database then doesn't connect who they are and any information I know about. They are just vaguely familiar.

It is causing me a lot of issues now my children are attending school as in the playground I often appear rude. I can't put names/children/jobs to the faces I see.

Me too! I have to check with someone before I commit myself. It's made much worse by stress, though. So if it matters that I recognise them, I probably won't!

I have this but I also have social anxiety. I thought my anxiety when meeting people meant that my brain wouldn't focus on the person's face so that's why I would easily forget them. That's my theory anyway!
It would be interesting to know if you have face blindness you also have anxiety?

My mum is like this - in the town I grew up in she could pass me in the street and blank me, and when I said "Hello mum, it's me, your only daughter" she would be delighted to see me but say "there are so many girls and you all look the same"!

The odd thing was we had two identical black cats, and she could tell them apart at a glance.

I’m just the same,GallicosCats, the post it note analogy is brilliant! I see the same people day in day out and can forget their names. They look at you like you’re mad.

I have a mild version of it.

I don't remember faces, even my loved ones. I have a sort of impressionist image of them in my head, where I can see bits of features, but not the whole face. I'm sat here trying to 'see' my husband of 24 years' face and I can't. Makes me sad.

The not recognising people is a bugger. I work with different clients on different sites and there is always two people who are similar and I'll have to work extra hard not to mix them up. Law of averages seems to mean it happens with every client organisation so I'm constantly on guard.

Me too. I can't put names to faces-someone says "oh, so and so's got the keys" and I can't remember who so and so is. I have 2 work colleagues who look vaguely alike, and I can never remember who is who.

Omg this is me, I still don't know the kids in my dc class nor their parents!
Had conversations with complete strangers in supermarket s who clearly know me 😪

I very much like the post it analogy. I am also minus a minds eye. But no anxiety, just toe curling embarrassment when I get it wrong (last time I was streaming with cold and managed to blame it on being ill 🤧).

This is me. It is so awkward, especially at work where I meet lots of new people. It’s when I meet them for second, third, fourth, fifth time and walk straight past them...it gets so embarrassing. In my job I often have to train doctors, nurses and other clinicians. I have often walked up to someone I’ve only just trained and asked them if it is a good time to go through such and such. The worst occasion was when I approached an Asian nurse for the second time that morning and I was so afraid he’d think I was racist, when it is something I do with everyone 🤦‍♀️

I have this, but had trained as a teacher before I realised how bad it was. Colleagues seem to memorise kids' names and faces within the first couple of weeks of the year, but it takes me up until half term,and even then I'll be hazy on half the identikit little girls and boys in years 7 and 8. [laugh] AND then they all go and get haircuts over half term - and I'm back to square one!

Find it really hard to follow some films, when so many Hollywood actors look so similar, and often find it even harder to differentiate between non-western faces, especially if the people's hair is the same style. Feel really racist saying that. But I think it is a thing - think I once read a news article saying the average Chinese person, for instance, finds westerners more difficult to differentiate!

Brizzlemint I can't see family resemblances either, so wouldn't be able to recognise if people are twins (unless they're identical and standing in front of me) or those conversations where people say, ohh, it he/she like their mother/father etc. Unless they've both got striking coloured hair, or a very unusual nose, I haven't a clue if they look like their parents, even when I'm shown pictures, I still can't see it.

I am not good with people out of context, or different faces....like on Pointless you sometime have a bank of photos to choose and name, and I remember them from other things....so if it's actors, I'll often remember the film they were in and the character and then winkle their name out of my mind rather than actually recognise them ...if that makes sense

DH is REALLLLLLLLY good at faces though, especially when you have current photos of celebs from years back or the other way about, like school photos of colleagues ...Unless it's someone who had ginger hair and no nose, and still has ginger hair and no nose I am done for.

We’re all somewhere on the continuum- some people are brilliant at remembering faces after just one brief meeting, though i expect they’re few and far between.

When I’ve heard the medical term used it’s in extreme cases where people don’t recognise their own family members or people they see on a daily basis.

I think I’m somewhere in the middle... I struggle with people seen out of the usual context and would probably need to meet someone more than once to recognise them

And very common to struggle with actors on tv because they’re ‘being’ someone else, not just different clothing and hairstyle but different mannerisms/ accent etc
I rarely recognise actors though dh is great at reeling off a list of everything they’ve been in before!

I’m severely prosopagnosic - can’t recognise my own children in a class photo, walk past my own DH in the street etc. I can’t follow films without help, nor can I identify if someone is pretty or handsome. At work, I often have no idea who is who, I used to do it by desk but now we hot desk!

Oliver Sacks (The man who mistook his wife for a hat) had it and wrote about it https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/08/30/face-blind/amp
Interesting read!