So. I know the classic racist cliche is "all those people look alike." And the inability to distinguish people of another ethnicity from each other is a fairly standard marker of prejudice
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+1. I'm faceblind too, and while I DO recognise people it is, the OP says, based on voice and body language and dress and hairstyles and context. I didn't recognise my mum when she got a haircut; on one deeply embarrassing occasion I told an anecdote from my chemistry class to someone... who'd been in that class with me for six weeks at somewhere in the region of 4 hours a week (and there were only about 20 of us). I still don't recognise all 20 people in my geology class, and I'm in fourth year.
Honestly, the thing that I've found is the best way for me to handle it is to explain it: "Hi. I'm really pleased to meet you, but I'm also faceblind, so if I blank you in future it's nothing personal. I'd really appreciate it if you could introduce yourself to me at the beginnings of conversations the first few times we talk [or whatever], if that's okay?"
my friend's son is faceblind too, and he was visibly upset when I went to visit after not seeing him for a few months because I'd cut my hair and lost weight. he's known me his whole life, and it took him a while to cope with my suddenly being unfamiliar.
I am a little bit face blind toogmdreiaMay 23 2012, 16:40:44 UTC
I do this too... It's easy for me to confuse someone with one particular face shape, hair color, and eye color with someone else who looks similar, especially if they DRESS similarly.
It's just twice as awkward and embarrassing if the person is a POC.
I often don't recognize people if I see them "out of context", such as if I pass a coworker on the street.
Most of my recognition cues tend to be based upon things they do to set themselves apart from other people - I have one friend I might not recognize without her waist length magenta hair - but in settings where people dress really uniformly, it can be hell.
I'm glad I live in the SF Bay Area where so many people have unique hairstyles, tattoos, and piercings. I am pretty "conservative looking" myself but all the "uniqueness" makes it easier for me to recognize people.
The " marker of prejudice" is to assert a group of people really does look indistinguishably alike. you're not doing that - you're recongizing something about yourself
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*nods* But at the same time, I realize that with a casual acquaintance just not recognizing someone--or, augh, mistaking one author for another at cons, which is something I fear I will do--the fact that it's a blindness on my part doesn't necessarily make it sting less for the person I'm misidentifying.
That said, I like the idea of studying pictures ahead of time. Especially if they're pictures of people in multiple hairstyles/from various directions and so forth! I've found that sometimes helps when, say, I'm visiting a friend cross-country who I haven't seen in a few years; I'll dig up a picture of them to study beforehand, so that I don't walk pass them in the airport while they're trying to meet me.
That makes sense. I was sort of hoping there was a magic solution--or at least a solution that would avoid the awkwardness in the first place--but I can at least try being more vocal about that up front.
I similarly have difficulties recognising people but don't think I really have prosopagnosia exactly. It's milder than that, plus partly it's not recognising people, partly it's not remembering names. (And it's partly that much of the time I don't *actually* care about the people, I just want to get through without awkwardness.) And there's one particularly baffling instance I have where I've got two colleagues I've been working with for years, one with white hair, one with black hair, and I can't unaided remember which of them is A and which is B: I've had to create a mnemonic and recite it to myself every single time I need to figure out who it was who just talked to me
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Honestly, the thing that I've found is the best way for me to handle it is to explain it: "Hi. I'm really pleased to meet you, but I'm also faceblind, so if I blank you in future it's nothing personal. I'd really appreciate it if you could introduce yourself to me at the beginnings of conversations the first few times we talk [or whatever], if that's okay?"
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It's just twice as awkward and embarrassing if the person is a POC.
I often don't recognize people if I see them "out of context", such as if I pass a coworker on the street.
Most of my recognition cues tend to be based upon things they do to set themselves apart from other people - I have one friend I might not recognize without her waist length magenta hair - but in settings where people dress really uniformly, it can be hell.
I'm glad I live in the SF Bay Area where so many people have unique hairstyles, tattoos, and piercings. I am pretty "conservative looking" myself but all the "uniqueness" makes it easier for me to recognize people.
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That said, I like the idea of studying pictures ahead of time. Especially if they're pictures of people in multiple hairstyles/from various directions and so forth! I've found that sometimes helps when, say, I'm visiting a friend cross-country who I haven't seen in a few years; I'll dig up a picture of them to study beforehand, so that I don't walk pass them in the airport while they're trying to meet me.
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