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? :(

Me! Again I am not totally face blind but I rely heavily on other clues like clothes, way they walk or voice. I really struggle at work -especially at the moment- all my colleagues are in masks and scrubs and many have similar tied back hair! Oddly I seem to have less trouble with children’s faces- even before Covid- so it is not the lack of masks!

I have this, saw my GP in a queue out shopping, could not for the life of me remember who she was, but knew I knew her and that she had been kind to me, that was it.

I wrote her a card saying as much and thanking her for her support during a really tough time, on my next visit I saw she had pinned it to her wall. I hope others appreciated her as well.

I have this mildly - struggle with seeing acquaintances or colleagues out of context, quite often hear the dreaded words “you don’t recognise me, do you?”
With me I sometimes wonder if actually I’m just not that interested in other people (outside family and close friends)
At work (in a school 😭) I have to try very very hard to get everyone sorted out , and there’s a group of sixth form girls this year that I don’t think I’ll ever fully sort out in my head (think long brown hair, slim , converse trainers ) 😂🙈

My son has this. He has Asperger's and the two are common comorbidities. It's relatively mild as he recognises immediate family and friends but he can't differentiate between actors that he sees in programs all the time.
He can finally recognise Sean Bean after watching all the Sharpe series (about 12 feature length episodes) one every single night from start to finish.😂

I’m like this to a certain extent. I have literally come across 1000s of people - school, colleague, uni, working in retail at uni/with the public now, social media etc. It takes a minute for me to begin to recognise someone now. I have ignored people or walked past them after happily chatting away the day before, they must think km running hot and cold but it’s just that I don’t recognise them out of our usual setting

I struggle to recognise faces, not fully face blind but just not great at recognising people unless I see them a lot. A neighbour thought I didn't like her because I wasn't saying hello to her when I saw her in the shop but I just didn't recognise her. Felt so bad about that.

"didn't recognise her because she was wearing normal clothes!!!"

My mother met someone in the street, who complained she didn't say hello - at which point, my mother said (loudly), "Oh, Jo! I didn't recognise you with your clothes on!" (They were swimming friends.)

@Mistressinthetulips

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 wonder this too. Sometimes I think maybe I just don't look properly or pay enough attention. I'm not big on eye contact either so that probably doesn't help.

This has become a real problem for me over the last five years and I have worried about it (early 40s).

Even looking at pictures of my own children, I find they look incredibly different from different angles. I have to learn each angle rather than being able to 'get' that they are all the same person.

I can't tell men apart particularly. No hope of recognising people I've chatted with once or twice. I do recognise family. I don't understand it at all.

Yes, at my mil's funeral one of DH's friends came over to talk to me and because of his mask I had no idea who I was talking to.

Yep, this is me too. I once failed to recognise my own husband because he had a hat on. Even picking up DS from nursery when he was tiny I used to check his outfit to confirm I had the right child.

I am interested to know if anyone else that suffers with this has bad eyesight? I know I have a lack of depth perception, so I wonder if that is what causes my difficulties, as I can't see the subtle differences in peoples faces.

I am face blind. I do eventually recognise people but it takes ages for it to set. And even then if I see them out of context, it won’t click.

I rely on hair colour, hair style and skin colour. I can’t estimate age at all. I cannot recognise characters in movies if they change their appearance or cover their hair.

My dd had two carers at daycare. Both were New Guinean women with similar hairstyles and the same skin tone. I just couldn’t tell them apart. It was mortifying. I really am not some dreadful racist woman who thinks all black women look alike- I have had the same problem with two blonde colleagues who both had bobbed hairstyles.

If people I know well change their hairstyle I may not recognise them. If I see them out of context, I might not recognise them. I would be the worst police witness in the land.

It is so embarrassing. The saving grace is that I remember conversations in detail so if I eventually place someone after 20 minutes of conversation, I can heroically ask if they still have their crazy sausage dog that ate their wedding dress in 1997. That ability saves me a lot.

Does this mean it's not a sign of something more sinister? There are so many people here in the same boat.

I have 400 staff and about 80% of them are black African. I find it so hard to recognise them because there is no difference in hair/eye colour and I have to focus on different face shapes, height, voices etc. The women also wear wigs, hair pieces and during Ramadan they sometimes cover their hair so sometimes someone I have known 100% due to having a certain hairstyle just throws me. I get very embarrassed by this because I think I should know them all by name.

One of the women called me by a different name the other week, she mixed me up with another white middle aged woman. She laughed and said oh, you all look the same to me. Everyone else thought she was really rude but I was relieved

Does this mean it's not a sign of something more sinister?

No, it's just different brains are wired in different ways.

However, if someone started not being able to recognise people when they had previously been okay at it, I would want that checked.

I have a colleague with face blindness and she is very open about it by telling new people she meets that she may not recognise them when she meets them. It means that when people approach her out of context they know that they might have to tell her who they are and everyone is supportive of her.

I really am not some dreadful racist woman who thinks all black women look alike-
I read research that said that everyone finds it somewhat difficult to tell people apart if they are from a different race. It has something to do with our brains being hardwired to recognise small details in those around us when we were little - if you only grew up surrounded by people who mostly looked like you, you will always struggle a bit. Of course, it is even harder if you have face blindness and use hair colour as a way to distinguish!

It is so embarrassing. The saving grace is that I remember conversations in detail so if I eventually place someone after 20 minutes of conversation, I can heroically ask if they still have their crazy sausage dog that ate their wedding dress in 1997. That ability saves me a lot.
Oh I do this - but I remember such specific details that sometimes people can be quite freaked out by it

@Gibbonsgibbonsgibbons

It is so embarrassing. The saving grace is that I remember conversations in detail so if I eventually place someone after 20 minutes of conversation, I can heroically ask if they still have their crazy sausage dog that ate their wedding dress in 1997. That ability saves me a lot. Oh I do this - but I remember such specific details that sometimes people can be quite freaked out by it

I'm the same remember loads of details and have a pretty sharp memory.

@Gingerkittykat

I have a colleague with face blindness and she is very open about it by telling new people she meets that she may not recognise them when she meets them. It means that when people approach her out of context they know that they might have to tell her who they are and everyone is supportive of her.

Its good to hear about your work colleague. Think if I ever going back to being in a workplace rather than being self-employed, thats what I'll try and do. I just dread people being nasty, but hopefully if they know and they know that you're not ignorant or self-absorbed they'll be ok. TBH in the nicest possible way, I'm very relieved to have found this thread. I dont really talk to anyone about it in real life cause I've always felt so ashamed about the whole thing.

I have this too. I could never understand how people recognised celebrities enough to ask them for autographs, until I realised most people can tell everyone apart!

Amazon Prime is great for films/tv... on most of the shows, if you go to the top left hand corner you can bring down a panel that shows you what characters are on screen at that moment. It helps me enormously

I have this too, so glad to hear from you all, bizarrely I'm married to a man that has an uncanny ability to recognise even relative strangers he met years ago. (Think, sat next to at a rugby game in 1996))

I was relieved when I found out this is a condition others have as I always put my own inability to recognise or remember people down to poor social skills. I find it easier on the phone to recognise peoples' voices also to discern their mood .

Just yesterday evening I had to stop watching an old film in black and white because several of the female and male characters looked so alike i was totally confused about the story. It was not supposed to be mistaken identity. I get anxious if I see any of my neighbours in the street as I can never be sure it is them and I may react wrongly. Forget everyones' names also which some may take as an insult.

Conversely, I find when people do remember me from years ago quite alarming. I am so used to assuming I don't exist in other peoples' worlds it is alarming if they do recognise me. Balzamico (just checked your name 4 times), does it alarm any of those your husband recognises?