Do you have a memory for numbers?

[GreenMarigold]

Another thread about a forgotten birthday got me thinking. I’ve never really given it any thought before but I tend to memorise numbers really easily.

I could tell you every telephone number of every house I’ve lived at and all my childhood friends’ numbers too. I could probably tell you the birthday of almost anyone I’ve known in my life (assuming I’ve been told it)! Postcodes and car registration numbers too.

I sometimes accidentally learn my credit and debit card numbers if I use them more than a couple of times in quick succession. I know all my bank sort codes and account numbers.

Are there lots of other number rememberers out there? Or am I just an oddball?! 🤣 I have a TERRIBLE memory in other areas though - I cannot retain plots of films and books at all.

Me!

Yes me!

Same with telephone numbers, registration plates etc and the like. I have fantastic memory for certain things but like you OP I can read a whole book and completely forget the plot and I frequently walk into rooms and forget what I went in there for but the post code and phone number from 3 decades ago I can recall perfectly! It makes no sense 😂

Product codes, car registrations and phone numbers. I feel like a bit of a weirdo but I think it’s natural. However, now my phone stores numbers and they’re easy to access I’ve lost that ability.

I am completely hopeless with numbers. I often get my own phone number wrong when I give it to people and always have to read my number plate to put it into parking meters. I have never learned my times tables.

When people start talking numbers I just switch off.

Yeah I have this, my memory is insane. I was talking to my mum about it the other day. We had 3 housephone numbers when I was a child and I remember them all. She can only remember the one she still has (even though there's no phone attached anymore).

I remember a couple of mobile numbers of friends, house numbers for friends, all our old reg plates.. it's crazy.

I have a suspicion I'm at least mildly autistic though, for many reasons, and this is just another indicator.

I know my bank account, national insurance and phone numbers. Even though I’m dyslexic. At some point I used them enough to fix them in my brain. But you told me a four digit number, two minutes later I’ll have forgotten it.

Thanks for the replies! Remembering numbers is generally quite a useful skill so I’m glad some others share it too!

Yes, as long as I don’t write them down. I look at a number, take a mental snapshot and that’s it. If I write it down I never remember it.

I have a real problem remembering numbers.. time, prices, anything with numbers. Apart from old phone numbers from the 80’s!!!!