People who ignore you

[Scarlypopsmummy]

Bit confused by people who will say hi in certain places then ignore you at others. My daughter has music lessons straight after a boy she is at school with. The boys mum had always said hi and we have occasionally had conversations outside the music teacher's house. When I see this mum at school, she actively looks away as if I've never seen her before!
I have experienced it before with another person. I find it a bit unnecessary and confusing that you wouldn't just say hi to acquaintances even if you do barely know them?? Am I being unreasonable to think you can say hi without the need to become friends? I wonder if I come across as over friendly so I feel like I have to scale myself back and now don't speak to the music mum at the lessons and wait in the car.
I understand it's trivial compared to life's problems in general but just interested if other people experience this.

Sorry, I do this unfortunately. I dread the school run. I'm really shy and awkward but unpredictability I sometimes get a burst of confidence and chat to someone, especially if they speak to me first. I find this easier with new people who I try to welcome but then cringe realising the parents around me must be wondering why I'm speaking to the new person but not them. I then spend the rest of the evening hearing the stupid things I said booming round my head. Next time I pass them I will hide/avoid and hope I wasn't seen. Next time I might get braver and intend to say hi but they're speaking to someone else or look busy so I don't want to interrupt, why would they want to speak to someone like me, this continues for a while. Finally I might catch them on their own or at a quiet time and say hi-they blank me, it was too late. I also find it a lot easier to speak to someone one on one, such as your music class example, but just can't bring myself to speak if there's a crowd of other people like the school run. Since I dread the school run and hate social interaction I also tend to brace myself for it head down, rush in, rush home and I just try to ignore all the people, I tune them out otherwise I can't cope with it. I know I don't appear anxious, people tell me I look calm, so I just come across as rude.

I see faces but as an example... I once spent too long disagreeing with a friend over Tom Welling and Cillian Murphy (and I went away thinking I was right, which I wasn't), because my brain's unable to tell them apart, which I didn't know at the time. I tend to remember very pretty faces or very unpretty ones, most others are pretty much all the same, therefore forgettable. If I got mugged by a stranger I would probably struggle!
I often find myself staring at people, even random people, because I'm constantly trying to pick up bits and pieces about them I can retrieve later to remember them but to no avail.
Nowadays a lot of people don't have their own style when it comes to clothes which makes it even harder because they all look even more similar.

@Windbeneathmybingowings Forgot to add: I can read expressions too and I am, modesty aside, extremely good at assessing whether people are lying or not. I've also been able to pick up on a few people I thought had a serious MH issue, after very few interactions, and was proven right over time -though I don't know whether this is completely unrelated.

If I am looking at the right face, I can see if they're smiling at me. But if there are loads of faces I may just see a confusing sea of faces, and individuals' expressions may not jump out at me.

@Windbeneathmybingowings · Today 17:14
Does face blindness also mean you can’t see people smiling at you? Not being goady, I genuinely wonder if you see a sea of heads without expression.

I can read facial expressions but if someone is smiling at me on the street I often feel a bit panicked because depending on the person you should react in different ways (long lost friend verses the tiler, for example). So there’s a pause when I’m thinking ‘f*’. I do try to tend toward smiling but then smile too much at who, judging by their alarmed expressions, are just pleasant faced strangers. Also, maybe because of the face blindness, I don’t look at faces so much as I assess identity by gait, clothes, style etc.

If you have face blindness or social anxiety, do you say hello back to someone who says hello to you? Loads of people say hello to me because I'm in a position where I'm in a public-facing role but don't always meet people directly. People think they know me and say hello or smile and I always say hello back or return the smile regardless of whether or not I know them.

my 2 cents is that there are alot of mental health problems, so I never know who might be on medication or maybe they are too busy, or have some other 'depressed' day etc. so I am trying not to judge. if you are from UK, then this is the norm here. we are masters of being reserved. it is socially fine to not say anything, wherease in other countries if you don't say Hi it is considered 'rude'. sometimes I am enjoying the reservedness, nobody bothers you. at first I felt a bit strange when I came to UK.

haha really what does chewing a wasp mean? I've never heard that before...this is so funny.