Is This Normal?

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I can't even remember how long this has been a problem, but it's weird.

I'm not faceblind- I can tell two people apart when I see them together. I can even recognize some people I've known for a long time such as family members or people I've known since middle school. Yet, faces of celebrities and people I haven't known for years sort of bleed into one another when I try to remember them. If someone I know gets a haircut, I don't recognize them. When I see my coworkers out of uniform, I don't always realize that they're my coworkers. This was particularly a problem with a coworker who wore a hijab (I learned to recognize her voice and the color of her hijab).

When watching movies, it's worse- I usually can't identify a celebrity unless there's something extremely unique about them (such as Morgan Freeman and his voice), and I'll sometimes get lost trying to follow a plot if multiple actors look similar.

I have some techniques for recognizing people- hair, voice, dress style, mannerisms, context of meeting. If I see a certain facial feature, such as eyebrow thickness, I can narrow down the possibilities as to who I'm looking at.

It's embarrassing- I'm obviously awful at remembering what to call people, I'll sometimes say hello to total strangers if they resemble friends, and I'll sometimes be confused if someone I AM familiar with greets me.

If you mean "normal" as "normal for an autisic person", then I guess it is normal.
If you mean "normal" as "normal for an non-autistic person" I don't know.

To original poster.

I have this problem also but not as bad as you.

That is the thing with autism we are not all the same we have a mix and match of symptoms to different degrees.

The OP describes my own experiences very well. I don't have a diagnosis, but my son does and my parents think I have Asperger's.

I have this problem...exactly as you (the OP) described. For example if I'm watching a movie and there are two young woman characters with blond hair I can't tell them apart and therefore can't follow the plot. I also had two colleagues at an old job in a daycare who were both of the same ethnic background (a different one than mine) and they were both young women and another (third) colleague used to tease me about getting them constantly mixed up and would ask me jokingly"who's * *name* and whose *name* ?.......am I *name*? She would even ask other people in the day care who worked in other rooms to come in and watch me still get them mixed up for the umpteenth time. They were really mean to me at that job..... because I told them I had a disability that made it hard to recognize faces but they still made fun of me. Anyway I can recognize my family and people I've known for ages even if they get a haircut - but for new people if they change their hair or something I'm screwed. I don't know if it's normal but at-least we can both aver that there are other people out there with the same experiences in this regard. I've been diagnosed with AS and NVLD though.

At first I thought I had faceblindness because I can never remember faces. I can't follow movie plots either if it's not an actor I know very well. But then I do eventually remember faces if I've seen them at least 5 different occasions, or if they look really unique and something in their faces stood out to make me remember them.

That doesn't really sound like faceblindness so I'm really upset that I have this disability that can't be explained. My boyfriend always has to put up with me asking, "Who is this?" in every other scene of a movie and he's gotten used to answering, "He's the same guy we just saw in the previous scene, darling."

What then constitutes face blindness?
I've embarrassed myself when I see someone outside of where I usually see them. For instance, if I see someone whom I usually see at Church, in the grocery I know I know them, but cannot remember name or where I know them from.
I've also confused two people who are similar in size and hair color. I again come off as prematurely senile.

I could be wrong - it's been known to happen - but I think what you describe is the most common sort of face blindness. That 'I don't recognize people I know if they get a haircut' is sort of the definition, I thought.

People who don't recognize their own mother are clearly missing all sorts of other visual clues. I'm not entirely certain I'd recognize my own mother on sight if she were wearing a wig and I met her in a place I didn't expect to see her.

Supposedly, most people don't need the extra clues - for me voice is very important, especially for tv and movies - to recognize others. Their brains are 'wired' to see minor differences that might as well be nonexistent to people like myself.

I'm only faceblind with people who are obsessed with looking like everyone else, aka suburbanites who spraytan themselves all to hell, overdye and overstyle their hair, dress like everyone else and so on. And then they wonder why guys won't pick them out of a crowd of people who look like identical clones to them.

That, and if it's hollywood actresses who have plastic surgery, how can I tell the difference when they're wearing the same nose shape/nose job?

Most of the time when I do recognize someone in that above category (sheeple suburbanites or actresses on tv), it's based upon their voice. And if they don't have a distinct voice, then I'm sorry. lol