Anyone with Face blindness? Looking for tips

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I've always had face blindness and it's always caused problems socially with people thinking I'm rude. But I swear it's getting worse with age. I saw someone who I've seen weekly for 12 weeks outside of their usual setting this week and didn't recognise them at all until I twigged her accent. It's causing problems in work when I can spend all evening with them at a networking event then not recognise them again.

Other than making physical notes on someone's appearance- which in itself I can see getting me into trouble- any help or suggestions? Thanks 😊

Yes! I watched the whole of Sliding Doors without realising that the two women were the same person in different realities, because they didn’t have the same hair!

My dc know that if a character’s had a haircut they need to tell me it’s the same character!

I find tv shows and films very difficult to follow generally and I can watch a film then have no memory of ever having seen it!

So comforting to read lots of other people having the same trouble as me. I usually just try to be friendly to everyone as I think I would rather appear weird than rude. Not easy as I'm not very confident socially.

I messed up last week, there is a woman I see at the swimming pool every week, I felt bad as I hadn't spoken to her at first then I realised she was someone from work, since then I smile and chat every week, until last week when I mentioned to the woman at work about her swimming ... turns out it isn't her in the swimming pool at all! She now thinks I'm crazy as I wasn't quick enough to come up with a good explanation.

My work has a PowerPoint of staff photos which I study often but I can't translate that to people in real life. I can't recognise someone from their photo.

I do exactly the same. Seemed to work fine until a colleague chopped off her long blond curls and came into work with a short brown bob.
I was making coffee for the office and said, "sorry we haven't met! I'm Flozle can I get you a drink?"

She looked at me as if I was bonkers 🙄

Yep, that too!

Fascinating.
I have this to an extent, I can recognise family and close friends and colleagues after a while. I used to panic at the school gates because I couldn’t pick out my children, but as they approached me I could recognise them.

I have aphantasia but I also have a very visual style of analysis, eg I draw mind maps & diagrams all the time. When I listen to an audio book I see the words in my mind, but I can’t see the images they evoke.
I don’t have ASD.

A question for others- how is your recollection of past experiences and events? I can barely remember anything from the past, my own childhood or even my children’s earlier years, and I’ve often wondered whether it’s related to face blindness.

This is a reassuring thread as I have this too. Also have huge problems with directions - just don’t recognise places even if I’ve been several times and struggle with left and right. I live in a village but never walk anywhere as I know I’ll bump into someone I know but don’t recognise. I hated school pick up and I’m sure people thought I was rude. I often mistake people as well - I waved at my friend the other day and determinedly made my way towards them only to discover it was someone else.

If I'm thinking of family members who have passed - thinking of a grandparent I was very close to - I can hear his voice clear as a bell. If I try and picture him I can only picture photos I have of him, not memories.

I also can get lost on a one way street.

I have it, used to be very mild but the menopausal brain fog has made it worse. I can recognise family and close friends, but people who I've only met a few times or who I only see sporadically, I've got no chance. I can never recognise my GP for example. Following TV shows can be hit and miss.
I probably have ADHD, don't have aphantasia and I'm good at art, but hopeless with directions, in fact struggle to concentrate on spoken stuff like podcasts. Also don't know my left from my right. - in answer to other poster's questions!

I have it to some degree and am also autistic.

It's definitely getting worse with perimenopause.

This reminds me of when me and my dd were meeting up at a train station. We crossed paths, both smiled politely at each other and carried on looking for each other for another 5 seconds until we both realised at the same time what we’d done 😂

I am fascinated by this thread and very curious if it's ok for me to ask a question!

My question is, was/is online meeting actually better if you have face blindness because everyone has their name on screen and it automatically highlights who is speaking?

My reason for asking - I'm good-ish at faces and absolutely useless with names, but very recognisable myself from performing and having ridiculous hair. I also know a stupid number of people from lots of previous jobs, working at local uni, having a massive family and self employment/ networking, so am regularly in a position where someone approaches me and we have an enthusiastic chat and while I know I've met them before, I have absolutely no clue who they are or how I know them, and its disconcerting. Had to train friends and family never to ask for an introduction if we bump into someone, but if I'm looking blank to please ask their name in front of me 🙈

I found the pandemic months of everyone meeting on zoom helpful initially because everyone had a name label on screen, but have now embarrassed myself more times than I want to think about by utterly failing to recognise someone in person who I've actually spoken to fairly extensively on zoom.

As some of you have said, as soon as I work out who they are with some context I have a great memory of our conversation and the details, but have absolutely no recognition of their face from a screen and have had to almost reprogram their real life face into my brain. I do have ADHD and ticker tape synesthesia, and it's definitely worse as I get older.

But I can picture faces in my mind including loved ones and friends who have passed away, so I don't think it's aphantasia or proper face blindness for me, and I'm now totally fascinated and probably about to fall down a Google rabbit hole!

I'm not sure I fully believe this is an actual thing. How can you not recognise people you see on a daily/regular basis? Or even your own family as per pp? That sounds more like Autism or similar neurodivergence and/or vision issues maybe?
I'm not calling anyone a liar, it just sounds so alien to me and I'm struggling to understand how one would go about day to day life if they don't recognise, say, work colleagues perhaps (or in the case of the PP who doesn't recognise family), their own child in a soft play?!?
How can you recognise some people in your life but not others, are you paying more attention to those you do recognise??

That sounds very much like Autism (I have a child with ASD. Just citing the source of my knowledge)

There's a CBBC documentary on a young girls face blindness called My Life - Who Are You, which you might want to watch. I can't seem to find it on iplayer. Duncan Ballantyne is also interviewed, he suffers with this too.

Your knowledge is lacking. Face blindness, or prosopognosia, is very much a real condition and not solely associated with autism.

Oh constantly

i can’t believe so many of us have this!!

i sometimes know I know people but not a clue how but then also someone I can distinguish loses weight and I lose them again

This is interesting. Now I think about it DH often surprises me because he can't recall people and who someone is. He lives in his own bubble anyway so I always assume he is just in his own world. But as i said I think DS has faceblindness so maybe DH has it too. Like a pp DH is really hot on recognising dogs. He often jokes about how he only knows people by their dogs so if he meets them in the shops without the dog he's got no clue.

It's falling into place now a bit.

I have aphantasia too but I can’t do mind maps at all. I can’t follow one, and I can’t follow video tutorials either. I need written instructions. I’m very ‘wordy’ and I can replay conversations from years ago like a script. I have constant internal monologue and can often ‘see’ words written down like a typed script.

I have a very good memory for past events. However, one of my children has very little. They can’t remember major events from childhood and have very few memories. I’ve heard it called SDAM - Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory. I know an adult who has this too and she says she has very few memories of her children either, can’t remember their milestones.

I can assure you it is an actual thing. It’s called prosopagnosia and well documented. It can be associated with autism but not always. Mine was diagnosed a long time before my autism.

There are degrees of it.

I do recognise my family, but on occasion i haven’t. I walked past my own dad in the street because i wasn’t expecting to see him there. I didn’t recognise my dh when he shaved his beard off. He came to pick me up from a coach and i didn’t know who he was.

I recognise people by other cues. Their hair, voice, clothes. I always recognise my dc, as I would know if they’d had a haircut etc! I could pick them out in soft play easily. It’s sometimes confused me if another child has similar hair and the same t shirt, but only briefly. Interestingly, i couldn’t recognise myself in a particular photo recently although I usually do. I knew it was someone familiar but didn’t know it was me!

It’s a bit dismissive to say this isn’t an actual thing just because you have no experience of it. I find my child’s deficient autobiographical memory difficult to understand because it’s so different from how my own brain works. But I’d never dismiss it as not real. People can and do compensate in all kinds of ways.

Dress distinctively yourself - that way other people are more likely to greet you. And say hallo to everyone in a friendly way, as when they say hallo back that gives you extra clues.
I noticed that facial expressions change my perception of a face, so someone I usually see looking serious seems like a different person when laughing. I find it easier to recognise people with very expressive faces.
Another tip is if you think you might be mixing up say Ellie and Olivia, to say "hallo Bella". People get less offended that you got their name wrong than that you thought they were a different person. I tell people I struggle with names, as they are more sympathetic than if i say i can't recognise faces.
I work with hundreds of children who all know my name and think it's very funny to pretend to be each other, so I have a spreadsheet with the lookalikes listed.
I may be autistic and there are definitely different ways of not recognising faces.

@EnglishBluebell it is most definitely real.

Mine is not total, but it’s pretty significant. I cannot reliably recognise my own children in photos. I can walk past family members I don’t see often without having a clue who they are.

I can make myself look terribly racist by thinking I’m talking to Priya in the office, but actually it’s Narinder and they just don’t have enough unique markers for me to be able to reliably differentiate. Which then makes me have to make the choice of either telling them I can not tell who they are (and bracing for accusations of micro aggressions) or trying to avoid speaking to them at all…

I love Teams meeting because my clients all have their names written all on their little squares.

If I were to see a murder, I would be able to describe the assailant objectively, but not be able to recognise them in a line up of similar people.

This thread is very interesting. Mine is mild, but has been embarrassing. I too just laugh it off saying oh I'm sorry I'm rubbish with names. But unfortunately when I do get caught out it's clear it's not just a name issue. I'm still reading the thread hoping for any tips to make it better, I've already tried most of the things suggested and they haven't helped.

I did not know this is a thing.

thanks for enlightening me. I reckon honesty is the way to go. I think I know a few people with this

I have face blindness too. I’m ok with family and people I’ve known for years but I struggle with other people. It leads to much awkwardness and I wear glasses so can’t use the forgot my glasses/ don’t have my contact lenses excuse.

I rely on remembering unusual features and really struggle with people who don’t have any. Even if they do have an unusual feature I still struggle if I see them out of context or if they’ve changed something (i.e. they don’t have glasses on when they usually wear them).

I had a job where I needed to know everyone in a large office and it was an absolute nightmare; I had to draw out a floorplan with desks and write names on the plan and used this for all the years I worked there!

I really struggle to follow films as many actors look the same to me and I can’t work out who is who which makes following the plot difficult.

In answer to a post above, I do not have asd.