I really struggle to recognise people's faces

[t1r3d]

I wouldn't say I have complete face blindness but I really struggle to recognise people. Twice yesterday at work I didn't recognise two different colleagues and completely blanked them in the corridor. One because they had their hair different and the other because they were wearing their coat and I couldn't see their outfit. I found myself looking at their faces trying to see if they were my colleagues but I couldn't 100% tell that it was them and not someone else within their demographic.

Some people I will easily recognise as they look distinctive enough or have some unique identifying feature that means that I can't mix them up with others.

Does anyone else struggle with this? :(

I have this, and it's not great in my line of work.

I recognise voices well, thankfully, and if I need to 'recall' someone, instead of getting a flash of their face, in my mind, I get an audio clip.

Strangely I have found that I can recall facial features better if I have seen a photograph of the person, as then I seem to be able to refer to the 'fixed' photo of them, instead of just the voice. I can also remember parts of their face, like the corner of their eye and cheekbone.

Gait is also useful.

Films can be a nightmare (Matt Damon/Leonardo di Caprio are interchangeable for me too!). All white, blonde haired women look the same to me.

I failed to recognise my own child once.

Yes, I struggle when I see people out of the context I usually see them.

I was in town last weekend and walked past my boss. She stopped me and we had a chat, but I didn’t recognise her until she mentioned something about work and I twigged.

I’ve walked past my parents in town as well - I didn’t have a clue who they were until my Dad spoke and I recognised his voice. They live 200 miles away so I’d never in a million years expect to see them in my local town, but they’d decided to surprise us with a visit but popped into town first.

I quite often get stopped in the street by people who seem to know me but I have no clue who they are - sometimes a the next day they’ll pop into work and I’ll be like “aaaahhh”

I worry that I offend people, but friends and family mostly seem to understand and have a giggle at the completely blank look on my face when they know I’m frantically trying to work out who on earth they are.

I remember watching the film The Departed- I found it very confusing- and then I realised that Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon were actually two separate characters and not the same person.
And me!
I'd also be hopeless in picking a stranger out in a police line up as I wouldn't have a clue even if I'd just been talking to them. I couldn't even remember what they were wearing fhs...

I have this too.

When I was young I worked for a beauty brand where you had to traffic stop customers around the store and get them back to the counter where you would apply makeup. I once spent 15 mins with these 2 ladies, we were laughing, joking and having a great time together, they left the counter and I then immediately went to get more customers, I then stopped the SAME 2 women and asked them if they had heard of the makeup brand if they want to come with me to the counter and try it on, they looked insulted and confused and said I had already served them!!! I still cringe when I think about it all these years later.

It's actually made me feel better other people have this problem too.

@Mistressinthetulips oh god that’s my worst nightmare. I didn’t know it was a thing until a few years ago. Used to dread parties or nights out where I might be expected to recognise people. I just tell people now that I don’t recognise faces very well and it has taken so much stress out of it. I’d get so embarrassed before.

Oh gosh, I mix up Matt Damon and Leonardo di Caprio too! It's like they're identical twins, separated at birth.

My DD used to have a classmate whose mum was in a same-sex relationship. Each day, this child would be collected by a blonde-haired lady, Mary (not her real name, obviously), and we'd often chat at the school gates. It was months before I realised that there were actually two different blonde ladies who collected this child. I'd been calling them both Mary throughout. Once I realised, I could see that they were both quite different in appearance, apart from the blonde hair.

Yep! I remember struggling at school, especially in a new group. I could tell the girls apart but was often stumped by boys. I think I was using haircuts/styles and most of the boys had short brown hair so it took me a lot longer to get them sorted out.

I have this as well, have only realised that its a thing quite recently, I'm 46. I've just started to tell people in conversation recently, even my Sister who I'm close to. Its horrible, I've had mortifying things happen, when people accuse you of ignoring them, say you dont recognise me etc, horrible cause I dont think its something that is understood. I remember getting pulled up about it by my family when I was a kid and when we were out and about and bumped into people. Like other people on here, I'm very good at voice recognition and remembering details about people. Just wondering does anyone ever get past the point of being embarrased about it. At the moment, I'm too scared to work in an office or similar cause of it, even though I have done for years in the past. Know anxiety makes it worse, dont know if thats wierd and I know I've worried more about it as I've got older. Are other people justs honest about it with people? Starting to think that might be the best thing to do where appropriate, but worry about people being horrible, taking the piss etc. I struggle with the peope on my DS's football team, my other DS's football team used to be even worse where there were loads of young black boys who all looked the same. It would be interesting to learn about other people's coping strategies. I'm glad I posted this thread, feel less alone with it, even though obviously wouldn't wish it on anyone either. if that makes sense.

Yes I have this. I won’t recognise someone out of their usual place - I once bumped into my ndn in town and he started chatting away to me, I didn’t have a clue who he was!
I do recognise people I know well though, I just have to meet them a couple of hundred times before their face gets fixed in my mind. If I met you at a party six months ago or you’re my GP doing some innocent shopping then there’s no chance I’ll recognise you.

Sometimes I have this, but other times I have the opposite and think I recognise complete strangers

Yep same here but I'm upfront about it to people I'm going to have regular contact with that I'm not being rude and feel free to give me a poke.

Yes I'm the same op - it's not just you! Sometimes I only register it's person X when it's too late to say anything and they've gone. Then I have to remember to apologise the next time I properly see them, I hate it!

I really cannot remember people until I know them. Even then I may forget you. Recently I was on a course and spent the whole day with a guy who was familiar. He was a role player for some training so I didn't know his actual name. Turns out I spent two weeks of 15 hour days with him on an intensive training course two years before. I had no idea!

I also work in a predominantly white, middle aged, male environment. It can take me forever to recognise people and I still get tall white men, 40's with dark hair confused. I also hate movies when the characters are all from the same cloth. I'm also terrible with race. As I say I live in a predominantly white county so I do not see many people of colour and really struggle to identify people. I've never forgotten my family and friends though so I assume eventually the brain slides the image into a 'you can stay' box and then it's all good!

I also am very surprised when people recognise me. It just occurred to me that people who don't suffer with face blindness probably don't struggle to recall people they met a long time ago in the same way!

I took part in a scientific study about a month ago and that told me I was moderately to severe face blind. I actually didn't know. But now I know, that makes a lot of things make sense, such as difficulty in understanding the plot of films and plays. I always remember bumping into DD's swimming instructor in Sainsbury's. It was so embarrassing. I didn't recognise her because she was wearing normal clothes!!! So embarrassing!

So relived that I'm not the only one who suffers with this.

Another related thing I have is I sometimes think I recognise someone when I don't. So many times I have worked with someone or had someone in my university class that I have thought is someone else I know and then had to discretely check the class list or rota to see if it is them or someone else (it's always someone else!). It's always because they have a similar appearance (hair, clothing, height, etc) to someone I know even if their faces look completely different.

It's so difficult, especially when people tend to dress the same and have similar hairstyles.

And me. I once didn't recognise one of my SIL of many years when she had a different haircut
I'm good at gait and voices

Exactly this. I struggle when people aren't where they "should be". For example next door neighbour, we're on first name terms so not strangers, but if I see him at, say Tesco's. Complete mindwipe. Same if I see colleagues, that I speak to every day, if they aren't in their uniform I don't know them.

Yes
I don’t recognise people, it’s really hard now they wear masks
I have to recognise people as oat of my job- I work in a nursery and have to take children out to their parents. I often have to go out and ask them who they are

Mark Wahlberg
Matt Damon
Leonardo Di Caprio

Completely indistinguishable!

Gait, voices, tiny details of appearance - all good. Person I n the wrong place - no chance.

Can’t spot my own children in a group in school uniform.

@Stompythedinosaur

I do this. I particularly struggle to recognise characters in films when they change their clothing!

Oh me too! And why oh why do they have to have two or three characters who all have blonde hair/ the same basic defining features etc?

I wish every movie only had one character with glasses, one with a certain hair colour, one with moustache etc.... so I can bloody well tell them apart!!!!

Otherwise I spend the whole movie going...."is that the one who....?"

Yes. Severely prospagnosic. 0/100 on the tests they use for research into it.

I tell people, which works well about 50% of the time. The rest, they are all ‘but you must remember me’ [no, their specialness does not counteract my neurological deficit] or ‘oh yes, I’m terrible with names, too’ [Yup. Just the same. You can’t remember my name, I can’t recognise my DC. Entirely equivalent.].

Yes!

I work in childcare and TBH it's a bit of a nightmare at handover. There's a couple of parents who are very familiar - they are the chattier ones - but most I'm not 100% about so have to check with a colleague.

I can pick up on voices, but it's embarrassing asking a parent who they are here to collect just so I can hear their voice .

I've been struggling with the job and it's been affecting mentally so I was wondering if it's an anxiety thing? It's odd as I can picture the faces of people I have seen since pre Covid, yet people I see almost daily I can't even picture..

Working online has been a blessing - I see people's names attached to their faces!

😁

So is it really face blindness if we can learn certain faces, with time, but not others? I read a book (fiction) about someone with this once but she literally couldn't remember a face from one day to the next, her husband could have been a complete stranger.

I have this, it was a nightmare when I was a teacher!

I am great at silhouettes, gait, little movements and voices, but I also have good success focusing hard on a small part of the face.
For men I find the jaw/mouth is best - so beards and more recently masks have thrown me, so I have switched to hands.

For women I go more on hair (risky) and colour/style of clothing. Plus anything like moles, scars etc.

I recently did an Open University "Are you a super-recogniser" online thing with men's faces using my special strategies and it came up that I could be a super recogniser! So my strategies work. (But staring hard at the jaw of an actual man rather than a photo makes you look like a weirdo!)

Like others I tend to recognise several people as the same person, but there are certain people I can just never recognise- one of my work colleagues fits in this category and I am forever blanking her, or looking behind me to see who this stranger is talking to, but it's to me.