Face-Blindness

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I might be faceblind, but I am unsure.
But I find that when I am somewhere where I'm meeting new people, people will approach me and talk as if they know me, but I had assumed they were just a stranger. I have to wait a bit and pretend I know them until I can tell who they are by their personality. After awhile though, I can kind of tell who someone is by their hair, torso, or clothes. Certain people though I feel like I can identify them by face, but I have to be very familiar with them, as in best friends or family.

My son went up to a girl at his school's open house and started chatting with her, thinking she was his classmate. She was actually his classmate's younger sister. I couldn't tell the difference, either. My husband had to point out to both of us that the girl wasn't who we thought she was. Oh well, at this point I'm used to looking like an idiot in social situations. The really funny thing is, my husband has seen the classmate fewer times than I have, but he still knew it wasn't her.

Ive also noticed that we (my AS husband and me, NT) can be watching tv and he sees some one who looks like some one else and I completely disagree and dont see any similarity at all. Also he will be insistant that a certain actor was in something else and I know full well they havent, we end up googling it to decide! So I think we do see people differently, we really have very different brains, amazing But we both fit together perfectly, we compensate and compliment eachother

Watching tv and movies can give me problems because I often can't tell the actors actresses apart. The more actors in the movie, the more likely I'll confuse some of them.

One nice thing about tv series is that I can get used to the actors and actresses who appear regularly and avoid the confusion.

In the Law and Order and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit series I sometimes confuse the actors of the series. If I turn the tv on in the middle of an episode, I often would not be able to tell you which series the show was a part of.

I enjoy the Last of the Summer Wine sitcom from the UK and can normally keep the actors straight in any one show. But as some of them have been replaced from time to time with others, the similar characters from different times seem like the same character to me.

I also like many of the old westerns. In many cases the bad guys nearly all look alike and I can't always tell which is which. The same goes for many crime drama type movies. This could be some reason why I tend to prefer westerns that have a common popular lead actor such as John Wayne, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, or William Boyd (Hopalong Cassidy).

For comedies, I could always tell Bob Hope and Bing Crosby apart.

The difficulties with movies, I have that as well. Especially when several of the actors look almost the same (like female, slim, dark long hair) I am utterly confused. Sometimes I can not follow the plot.

Very ironically I have twins. They are identical twins and very much alike but my older sons and I seems to be the persons having most trouble identifying them! This is very very embarresing. I can not always diferentiate between my own children!

This happens to me, too. I use hair color and other distinguishing features to tell movie characters apart. If there are several young white male villains with dark hair, for example, I have to keep asking my husband which one is which. "Is that the guy whose sister died?" "Is he the one with the bomb?" etc.

Part of it is Hollywood, which wants all female actresses to have the same (borderline unhealthily low) weight and other efforts to make them more attractive. It's like they're TRYING to make people confuse them!

It's in advertisements, too: even for products having nothing to do with a person's physical appearance, all people in them seem to be idyllic compared to real life: all men weigh practically the same, all women weigh practically the same, never any wrinkles (even for people supposedly in their 50's and 60's!) nor acne or any other blemishes.

Face blindness can be dangerous.

I had a late appointment, coming home at 7:30 pm, during January. Read dark, bitterly cold and snowy.

Come in calling for Hatchling. No kid. Fior tells me Hatchling has been out for 2 hours with the other kids. Our child was 3 1/2 at the time.

What did the kids look like? I don't know, KIDS! No name, no phone number, no clue what they looked like. What did Hatchling wear? I don't know.

We had just moved into a huge apartment complex. I barely knew where Hatchling's little buddies lived. All the apartments look more or less the same.

I said the meanest thing ever to Fior, "If I don't find Hatchling in 15 minutes, we have to call the police. You can give them the information about what happened. Well be lucky if CPS doesn't take her away."

After about 5 minutes of tracking down the usual suspects, a mom told me she was over this kid's place. Hatchling was safe, warm, mismatch boots, mittens (dressed herself), friend's mom slightly curious why a 3 1/2 year old would walk alone "to her friend's home."

Fior still doesn't notice who rolls over to play. Couldn't match a name, face and or gender to save his life. Hatchling has a mobile phone at 8 years, because she needs a way to contact me. Fior will not answer his mobile. I can not consistently count on Fior to act like a parent. Not mean, but the truth. Between the face blindness and total lack of what a reasonable adult would do, it can put Hatchling in unsafe situations when I'm not around.

Fior's only major parenting issue is the total lack of what is safe for a child at X age. I've done notes, roll playing etc, never being critical, but he just can't do it.

Tawaki