Does anyone else on the forum have some degree of difficulty recognising faces?
Once again I have made an utter fool of myself because someone with similar hair to the person I was trying to follow up with has sat in the same seat as I last saw them in.
*Cringe*
It’s so embarrassing. I have had many several-minute-long conversations with close friends I didn’t recognise (while internally desperately trying to work out who this person chatting familiarly to me is) because they have started wearing glasses or had a haircut or grown a beard.
Looking back, I can see it’s something I have always had problems with; I had a massive meltdown when I was at primary school because my mum had a drastic haircut and I could no longer recognise her amongst the other parents. As a child I leapt onto the end of strangers’ supermarket trolleys in exuberant greeting on a few occasions after mistaking them for my parents.
I’ve even assumed I must know a friend of a friend who was just really overfriendly with strangers (which was funny in hindsight, actually, especially my reaction when our mutual friend revealed we hadn’t, in fact, met previously after all and I had spent several minutes of conversation anxiously straining my memory for NOTHING).
Most people take it in good grace if they know me well (one of my best friends had a dramatic haircut the other month and even sent me photos in advance so he wouldn’t confuse me too badly, though he was saving it as a surprise for the rest of the group! Star!)
It’s difficult when it’s work colleagues (whom I almost never recognise out of context) passing in the street, though, and MORTIFYING when it’s taken by the person on the receiving end as some sort of “people of X ethnicity look the same” thing (which has happened to me twice in my life, both stick with me vividly). Luckily I did manage to get the explanation across that “no, literally anyone with very broadly similar features or hair (or occasionally who moves in a similar way) looks the same. It even happens with my family. I know it’s weird.”, but I dread the day someone is upset and I don’t get the chance to tell them what was actually going on. D:
I’ve done a bit of research recently that suggests difficulty with facial recognition might be more common in our community than the general population, so can anyone else make me feel less alone by sharing their embarrassing tales of mistaken identity? :3
