Face recognition failure...total embarassment

Post Reply New Topic

I'm more likely to recognize clothes or hairstyles. Changing hair or glasses or otherwise switching up your "look" can REALLY throw me off. Even if I'm pretty sure who I'm talking to, I will hesitate to say the name because what if I'm wrong?

I have had times when I didn't recognize my daughter right away when I saw her somewhere that I didn't expect to see her. I would be looking right at her and then suddenly be surprised at realizing that it was my daughter, but I didn't recognize her right away, there was a lag.
I never run into former co-workers or neighbors, and I have lived in this town for a long time. They could be all around me, but I don't remember what they look like anyway, so I wouldn't know.

I've failed to recognize my sister when I've seen her in a random public place.

When I moved from Year 11 to Sixth Form (at the same school, with 95% of the same people), I couldn't recognise anyone unless they had a major distinguishing feature (e.g. red hair). The problem was that they'd changed from wearing uniforms to wearing suits.

I dread having to do a police photofit (ie describe how someone I've seen fleetingly, looks). I'd just make it up and they'd arrest totally the wrong person.

LOL, that happened to me... Someone broke into my apartment, and I described him as tall, blond hair, blue eyes (basically I thought he looked like Alexander Skarsgard, the Swedish actor).

The police caught him and matched his fingerprints, and it turned out he was Mexican.

I have an extremely hard time visualizing the faces of people I'm closest to (my family members are the hardest), but don't have recognition problems as much when I see them in real life. Alternately, it takes me a while to be sure who someone is if we're not close, but I can usually recall their faces in memory on a whim. Anyone else like this?

Also, can I just ask what other people's face-blindness experiences are like? Often when I see someone in the hall coming toward me, I'll see the face, sense a familiarity, and then think and think until they have just passed me or say something to me, at which point I'm sure of who they are. Also, I sometimes am fairly certain that someone is who I think they are but I'm just not sure of it, not matter how clearly I can see them. For instance, I noticed the boy I'm sort of seeing right now on campus earlier and I walked towards him for a good 30 seconds and almost decided not to talk to him, just because I was so uncertain of whether or not it was him....sort of an embarrassing thing to admit...