I don’t recognise people’s faces

[BillywigStings]

I don’t know if I am the only one with this problem, but it certainly feels like it. I don’t recognise people and on a regular basis will walk by people who are bewildered and offended by it. I get mildly anxious in most social situations anyway and I naturally don’t tend to look people in the eye, though I force myself to. I find that unless I am out and walking along and actively thinking about recognising people and remembering to smile or say hello, I tend to not even notice they were there, other than in an abstract, strangers-walking-past kind of way. A previous neighbour took offence to this in a huge way, and it started a lot of unpleasantness. I was out in the garden, hanging out the washing, and she shouted over and waved (apparently). However, she was two gardens away, and I had my head in the clouds (as hubby puts it) and just walked inside with the empty laundry basket. This led to me feeling miserable for being ignorant and unobservant for weeks. She never did speak to me again (she was already antsy with me because she hated our cat) but we ended up moving soon anyway. The thing is, if I was just being unobservant and just had my head in the clouds, it doesn’t change the fact that I could not pick that woman, or most people I meet, out in a crowd. I tend to only recognise friends and family.

I’m currently sitting feeling horribly anxious because I relaxed and indulged myself today. I dropped off DS at nursery and walked home with my earphones in, listening to music. Now for me it’s either all or nothing. When I am listening to music I am in a different place - I can concentrate enough to get home safely, but for instance when there’s music playing in the background somewhere unless it’s reasonably quiet I can’t keep track of conversations. My hearing isn’t amazing so it just gets too confusing. So I walked home in my own world, and I noticed a few people caught my eye. This always seems to happen when I listen to music and it freaks me out, but I tend to assume it’s just because I am more relaxed so less likely to be feeling awkward and avoiding people’s eyes. So here I am, catching people’s eyes and feeling awkward but trying to enjoy music. Someone smiles as I catch their eye and I have to rack my brain as to whether they know me or am I doing something ridiculous like mouthing the words or have food on my face. Then I just get over that thought and some man says hello, I immediately panicked (thinking oh crap I must know him) and try to pull my ear phones out to reply, but he’s already past and I realise now that he is my neighbour. I am not 100% sure because of my recognition problem, but I just have this sinking feeling ... thing is, he must now think I’m a right b as it’s the second time I have blanked him, last time as he was coming out of the main doors of our flat block. I’ve even spoke to him a handful of times! We’ve got along well so why can’t I recognise his face?!

I know I tend to avoid looking at faces but I do try and study people I might bump into again, but often it doesn’t help. There’s still people I know quite well who I can’t quite picture in my mind.

Is something wrong with me? There’s a voice in my head telling my I’m just incredibly self absorbed and I don’t know, maybe I am. Can I fix this problem I have with recognising people’s faces?

www.nhs.uk/conditions/face-blindness/

It's not a mental health problem, it's an actual neurological condition.

It's a proper known thing (face blindness or something?).

You certainly aren't the only one, but people don't tend to talk about it much because I guess, like you, it's embarrassing and confusing.

I don't think there's a cure but maybe other sufferers would have some good coping mechanisms that might help you.

op I have this problem with faces too. I once walked up to my dad in an airport and started taking to him - only to realize it wasn't my dad and was in fact a reasonably elderly Asian man who had no idea who i was (my dad is neither elderly nor Asian)
My way of dealing with it is a smile for everyone who even vaguely looks in my direction and I also try to remember other things about them - for example Dan has red hair that looks like x (hats are very problematic)
I find the problem is much worse with men's faces, I think women are easier because they have more varied hair.

My main advice would be just to tell people you have trouble with faces - most people do understand.

@nancy75 I am good with people I know quite well, I don’t tend to make errors as big as you describe with your dad there. But I think a big part of that is because I often recognise people by the way they move or their footsteps, or sometimes voice. I have tried telling people I’m not good with faces but as it’s usually acquaintances and people I have only met a couple of times that are a problem, I don’t usually get to the point in conversations where it feels natural to drop it in, one once people are offended they just tend to keep quiet about it and I’m oblivious to anything having happened.

I too have this problem, it is embarrassing but funny as well sometimes. I once saw a woman in Tesco who looked familiar but I couldn't quite place her, it was only when she spoke to me I realised it was my mum with a new haircut ! Work colleagues have also been known to confuse me by wearing their hair differently i.e. up in a bun when they normally wear it down. Last year at the works christmas do I didn't recognise a man sat at our table, it was someone I see daily but he was wearing glasses for the first time.
As above, the best advice is just to tell people they're usually very understanding.

BillywigStings I do know what you mean about people that you don't really know that well - I've just accepted that the way to go is to look a bit strange and just smile or wave at everyone I make eye contact with.
Generally I find if they talk to me I can get away with a bit of general chat while I work out who they are (I'm really good at recognizing voices for some reason)

My partner finds it hilarious when I just ignore people we know or talk to random strangers because I think I know them

Shockedshell do you get this with people on the telly too?

My worst is male actors - there is a film that has Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg & Leonardo Dicaprio in it - to me they all have the same face. I watched it recently and had literally no idea what was going on because all of the characters look like the same person

Why don’t you go to your GP to ask whether you can be referred to a neurologist to discuss this?

I have this to a certain extent too, particularly with men's faces, and can struggle with films where they all look the same to me. Meeting poeple out of context can be very difficult , such as bumping into a teacher in the supermarket.

Generally I find it easier to recognise women, and as there is more variation in hair, make up etc. I just tend to be friendly back to people if they seem to know me and hope that as the conversation progresses I can work out who they are. Perhaps it would help if we all wore name badges!

Olinguito name badges and a brief description of where they should be!
Nancy - teacher at your child's school, that's the kind of thing I need people to wear

I am exactly like this. I will often see people and think I recognise them but I have no idea who they are. I have on occasion looked straight through close family and not recognised them. Sometimes I will walk into a room and not realise that I am not alone until the person makes a noise. It makes me quite embarrassed and the people I do it to find it unsettling.

Oh and I used to do the whole smiling at everyone I make eye contact with but that elicited a lot of unwanted attention so I’ve stopped that now, with men any way.

I have this too. Recently I did a test with the University of Bournemouth unit that studies face processing - about 1‰ of the population are hyper-recognisers and a similar number, including me, are not good at recognising faces.

Since having this confirmed I have been much more up front about it and feel a lot less embarrassed if I don't recognise someone - indeed I'm starting a new job and now mention it when introducing myself to reduce the potential for future offence!

www.prosopagnosiaresearch.org is the UofB website.

I have this. One time when I was working in a shop a bloke came in and starting talking to him. I knew I knew him but for the life of me I couldn't work out who he was. It was my dad.

I've heard Brad Pitt has this condition, I realise that's no help but it "even" affects famous people

Dh has it. It can be a struggle in the workplace, he’s often on the back foot.

He used to struggle with recognising me

The clinical term is prosopagnosia. If you google this you will find out more, you are certainly not alone and it can be on a spectrum. Videos with people with the disorder on YouTube also might help you to see how similar/dissimilar you are to those, often more severe, cases.

Oh gosh, I did something similar nancy75

My partner was in my work and this guy came up who I swear I thought was my partner's uncle. So started chatting to him asking how he was and stuff and saying 'oh my partner's over there by the way!' Wondered why he was looking a bit scared, thought ok he was weird..

Went up to my partner and said your Uncle is here. That's not my Uncle Oh...Now I know why he was giving me funny looks!

I'm like this too. I used to be terrified I would take home the wrong child from nursery! It used to make me anxious but I don't care so much now!

I can never describe anyone either. It amazes me how people manage to give descriptions to the police!

recently I walked past my DC in nursery the other day. To be fair, he had a pink wolly hat on (nursery's not mine) so completely through me off

I also think that with police drawings of people, then I see the 'real' them and I think, nope, don't see the resemblance!

I have face blindness. Like many conditions, it's a spectrum rather than an on-off switch so if you read up on it you may find that you have it more or less severely.

I took part in some research on it a couple of years ago. Apparently it often goes with being bad at directions (because people without the condition apparently have a sort out mental map inside their heads so when they've been somewhere before they can kind of picture it? I don't know, that's what it sounds like to me, but since I don't have the mental map I could be misunderstanding how it works).

Oh god. This is me..

Im legendary within my own family. Totally failed to recognise both my dad sister and husband at various times. Have almost picked up wrong child from school. Frequently. Got stranded at the airport because I couldn’t recognise my dad.

I gave up being a brownie volunteer because I could. Not. Tell them apart.

I have to watch films with the IMDB page open, i cannot tell characters apart. Which is why I love Star Wars. Ppl wear space armour. I like that. I can pick up,on the smallest difference in armour or space suits. But Faces. Nope.