Face Blindness and Physical Attraction.

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I have a query for those of you how have Prosopagnosia.

I think I am faceblind to some extent. I have to meet a person several times or become accustomed to seeing their face somewhat regularly in order to recognise them, form a picture of them in my mind's eye and so-on. Though it is not a problem if they have some sort of distinguishing feature/s that stand out.

This is a strange one - I am not physically attracted to many people. I find myself thinking a lot of people look very insipid and similar. Those I do find myself attracted to usually have characteristics that stand-out in some way. Again, they might have unusual facial features that seem striking, eccentric in their dress sense or mannerisms and so-on, sometimes things that other people would find unattractive. A lot of people (ie. certain celebrities) that are seen as handsome or beautiful seem very bland and uninteresting to me. Does anyone else relate to this?

I have prosopagnosia (although not as bad as some - I can learn a new face, but only after at least daily interaction for at least three months).

And yes, I have yet to see a person who I find physically attractive. I think because I do not actually take in a person's appearance, it's just impossible for me to be physically attracted to them.

I find my boyfriend VERY attractive, though, but that was only after I'd been going out with him for a few months and had fallen in love with him emotionally. Maybe that kind of opened up a new pathway in my mind for physical attraction, which was kind of strange for me at first!

One of the few celebrities I can actually recognize is the members of Pink Floyd, but I just think 'awesome' when I see them, not 'good looking'.

I don't think that I have prosopagnosia, but it may be that I have some aspects of it. Sometimes, when I haven't seen my boyfriend for a few days, I start to forget what he looks like! We have been seeing each other for a month, and yet this still happens. I also tend to forget what I look like, so must check in the mirror sometimes. And even then, I get surprised because how I actually look in my reflection seems different to what I was expecting to see. Another thing - when I try to picture my boyfriend's face, I can only see parts of it - like, his nose, or his lips, or his chin, but not the whole face all at once.

Yes, I have a problem recognising faces (although not as badly as when I was younger) and I also find few people attractive. I am bisexual, so have been attracted to men and women, but very very few. The people I have really been attracted to has been purely down to personality (in fact the second time I thought she was quite ugly when I first met her), but all had quite distinguishing features that marked them out from the crowd, both in terms of looks and personality. I can never fancy someone until I know them relatively well - this is why I have never been the slightest bit interested in celebrities (because I don't personally know them at all) and don't even find them good looking unless they remind me of one of the people I have known and been attracted to. Given that it also takes me ages to get to know people as I always prefer to speak to people I know (no small talk), it is very rare that I meet someone I really like and can go years without finding a single person the slightest bit attractive (although I am aware what other people find attractive, and can say if someone is fairly good looking or not even though it has no effect on me whatsoever).

I scored 69%. Most of it was only guessing though. Bohoo. I'm below average.. in face recognition. Screw it.

I scored 67%. That's not surprising. Aside from the fact that the test was getting me increasingly confused, and I had to guess many of them, I know that I have some minor face recognition difficulties, and I think it's worse when I don't have any other distinguishing features, such as hair, voice, and other attributes to take cues from. Once I become somewhat familiar with a person, I can almost always recognize them. It's definitely not as automatic for me as it is for the average person, though.
ETA: I have had multiple experiences where I've been greeted with a degree of familiarity by someone I didn't recognize, and I've had to pretend I know who they are. I've also been in situations where there'll be someone I have a passing acquaintance with, who I'll sometimes see in one setting, and sometimes see them in another setting, and not realize its the same person, or belatedly realize its the same person.
Okay, I know that explanation was completely incoherent, but I can't think of a better way to say it righ now. My thoughts are really not translating into cohesive sentences and paragraphs this evening.

well, I took that test, and scored 92%! So, I guess I don't have a problem with it. Still, I have to see a face many times before I can recognize it again, and there have only been a few times where I don't recognize a face. I used to have a neighbor who lived in the unit facing away from mine. I only saw him once, so when he greeted me on the street, I was puzzled, and did not recognize him.

hi nothingunusual, i identify with a number of your statements and i would say that my tendency was more toward face blindness than not... interesting to see that i scored 72% on the test linked by Scientist.

I scored a 71%. I was extremely uncertain on the majority of those faces and wonder if I just had some lucky guesses. I will have to retake that thing later. I think my problem is that I can't tie a name and details about a person to their face. I can see people from my classes in the hallway and I know they are familiar, but I often have no idea who they are until the say something or do what I call a "signature" move. That is like a certain phrase they like to do, a particular gesture, or an unusual style of clothes or hair. If I catch one of those it clicks in of who they are.

I can have a conversation with someone and then I can't remember who it was with because I can't see them. I have to dig through my memories looking for an image about the person I was talking to that has some distinctive characteristic. It is incredibly frustrating not being able to remember a person's name by their face right away when you go to their house and play games with them every week for 5-6 years. I keep wanting to call one of the guys by another's name.

I have also not recognized my mom in the grocery store until she called my name after I looked at her and then walked right past her. I was looking everyone in the face while going through the fairly empty store looking specifically for her. That was maybe a few weeks after she had cut her hair and she was wearing a different coat than she usually does. So frustrating sometimes.