Embarrassing face-blindness moments?

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Sometimes I really have trouble recognizing people's faces. I'm usually fine but every now and again, like today, I just completely blank out.

My friend came and visited me at the museum where I work today and I talked to him for twenty minutes about the life cycles of beetles, meanwhile completely not recognizing him. Rather than saying something, he just let me continue talking and walked away. Then when I got home, I realized that he had taken a photo of me and tagged me on facebook. I don't really know what to say to explain myself to him. As a matter of fact, as often as this sort of thing occurs for someone like me, I have yet to develop any sort of strategy for dealing with it.

Is there anyone else here with a similar problem?
If so what would you guys do in this type of situation?

I can kind of relate. I forget people's names all the times. I'll usually say "hey bud", "hey dude", "hey bro", "hey man", "hey", "what's up" because I don't recall their name. I'll try to remember their name while we're having a conversation and totally space out about what they are saying. This is a struggle for me. I've insulted many people by forgetting their name. Sometimes I mistake random people with my friends. It can be quite embarrassing. I have a real hard time with Asian people. They all look the same.

Last edited by bizboy1 on 19 Apr 2012, 1:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

It has never been to this extent, but I do have a problem recognizing people. I would have noticed who it was, however, because I can remember once I get closer to them.

Um... You could always say you were joking. Are you talking about what to say to him now that he did that? I can only think of saying you were joking.

I can identify somebody on a picture but not if they appear in person. I wish people were forced to wear tags with their name on it.

Fern, sigh* you can't undo what's done. The only thing you can do is speak honestly, "Hey, I ramble on and on and on about one thing for a half hour or more. People walk away from me but I can't help it. I can't stop myself. Kick me when I talk for more than 45 second."

Does that help? I mean, you can't really stop the rambling talk about one thing can you?

Oh I'm horrible with the recognition thing. Among the people I know I only know them when they are at expected places. Like a teacher in school. I do know they look familiar but can't recall their names. It generally takes me many extended interactions with one person to recognize them, assuming they didn't change their hair or usual clothing. I found women a bit easier to recognize. I still can't remember our 4 closest male neighbors. They're all typical white males in their 40s with very typical names. Luckily they all drive different cars so that helps me a bit to tell them apart. I used to not recognize DH too easily either. He's also a typical white male. Until he grew out his hair. Now I can scan around for guys with long blonde hair to find him easily.

I've had this many times:

A friend asked me to meet him somewhere. He turns up, says hello and it takes a few minutes to register. The same thing happened 5 days later with the same person.

I got tired of being embarrassed by not recognizing people, so I switched to a good offensive instead - I introduce myself as having face-blindness and request that they tell me their name whenever they approach me again. I have never had anyone make fun of the introduction, and most of them do tell me their name when they approach me again. When someone comes up and starts talking without their name, I gently remind them I'm face-blind and ask them to help me out by telling me their name again. Then THEY are the embarrassed one because they forgot my original request, or if I've never met them, they will be quick to say so and we can start from scratch.

I also have problems recognizing nouns in speech, so the recognition thing is a brain thing, definitely biological, not psychological. Look it up on Wikipedia and recommend the article to them if they give you a funny look when you make your request.

Put the burden on them, not on you. It works every time.

I don't have faceblindness, but I have had embarrassing moments with object blindness.

Yeah, face-blindness is annoying. Before I ever knew about the condition, I realized that I had trouble recalling my long-term (although also long-distant) boyfriend's face. I wondered if I was a bad person for it... I felt awful that I needed to look at his photo in order to remember what he looked like.

I also always had the most trouble drawing faces when I drew people. I have this natural knack for drawing the angles and sizes of limbs and the shape of the body itself, just right (when normal people need to sketch circles and erase old lines, etc etc. I just pick up a pencil and can make almost any human pose without needing a template.) However, the face was always the last part I did. I have lots of drawings I've made that look really creepy because I ended up giving up at that point... so they're just bodies without faces. I just never knew what to do to make faces come out right.

In interactions, though, I mostly have trouble remembering customers at work... which is awful, since in the place I work, my boss likes to "treat customers like they're at home." Situations often follow like this:

Customer comes in, walks up to me, and asks, "Are my glasses ready?"
Me: "What was your name again?"
Them: "... I was just here yesterday."
Me: "I'm sorry. I see lots of customers every day. I don't remember everyone's name."
Them: "But I was just here yesterday. How do you not remember me?"
Me: "Again, I'm sorry. I actually have this condition where it's hard for me to remember people's faces. If I could have your name, however, I can help you."
Them: "Oh... ...Okay... My name is......"

Mentioning that usually calms them down. However, I have had a time when it didn't work, and when I tried searching my memory to remember the person's face I apparently must've made a weird expression. The customer took it as an insulting look and threatened to get me fired for it. Ugh...

I also had a time where my boss was trying to make me remember a particular customer. I told her I didn't remember him. She continued to ask if I remembered him, describing his looks. I repeated, "I don't remember him." She continued trying. Finally I had to tell her that I can't be expected to remember every person who walks through the front door, especially since I don't even talk to most of them. She said that I "have to" start remembering them. Okay, yeah, just command it, THAT'LL make it easier. (Sarcasm.) I can't even start to explain to her that it's a neurological condition that I can't help, either. She's so dimwitted she can't even follow a simple logic explanation. She'd probably do what she's done other times I've tried to explain my quirks to her- laugh lightly, call me "cute", and walk away.

In my first year in high school someone came up to sit next to me at lunch, cheerfully greeted me, and then got angry and stormed off when I didn't recognize him. I suspect he was in my 5th grade class, but I am not certain.

Last year, one of my oldest niece's friends showed up at the door and I didn't let him in because I had no idea who he was. I had been around him rather frequently. My sister actually got mad at me for not telling her he was there (how was I to know she'd want to talk to him?).

I wasn't actually embarrassed on either occasion, however. I do think each situation was awkward.

Faceblindness isn't a serious problem for me, but it crops up now and again. For example, if someone comes to the office for a meeting with me, and I greet them, people will periodically respond with, "Nice to see you again," while all I can think is, "uhhh, have we met?"

Also...I used to work in customer service. There were times where I'd step away from a customer to check on something or grab a product from the back office, then return to the sales floor...and forget what my customer looked like. Oops.

Most recent times this has occured to me. And it's a rare thing, I don't usually forget peoples faces.

I was at a night club. In the middle of the dance floor I noticed one of the bouncers looking at me. A person I was with knew him, and asked if he knew me. The bouncer nods his head.

So then I'm staring, and have no idea who it is. Felt like ages before it clicked. A guy who lived down the road from me, a guy I used to walk to school with each day for 5 years.
--
The other time was actually with an animal. A pet my wife left at her friends, it had been there months before I went to visit her friends who were keeping it.

Her friend bought the horse out and asked me if I knew who it was (it had been shaven). Her friend told me it belonged to my wife, that she was taking care of it.

It took me about 10 minutes to realise who the horse was.
--
Not noticed this as a problem I have. These were cases where I hadn't seen either for months.

My friend has a digital photo frame and I was looking at the pictures and asked who the guy was that was in the pictures. "Seriously?" he asked. "You can't tell who that is?" I said "what, is that your brother?" He burst out laughing and said "That's me!"

Granted, he had short hair in the picture and I've only known him with long hair.

Ohh yes, this, too. After it happened a few times I started to consciously take note of things about the person so that I could find them again (like what color shirt they were wearing, if they were wearing a hat, etc.)