Prosopagnosia and not recognising people

Ok, a slightly personal post. I’m partly sharing because writing is my way of thinking things through, but also maybe it’s of interest too.

I tend to avoid social events around conferences, for reasons that will soon become clear, but this week, I stepped out of my comfort zone and joined a conference dinner. In a chance discussion, someone explained they had something known as face blindness (or prosopagnosia), which made it challenging to recognise people. As they described the symptoms – essentially a difficulty recognising familiar faces – it was like a lightbulb moment.  Some typical indicators from Faceblind.org:

• Confusing characters in films
• Inability to identify people in photographs
• Appearing “lost” in a crowd
• Asking generic rather than personal questions when meeting someone
• Avoiding using other people’s names
• Never introducing themselves to someone else, or two people to each other
• Failing to recognise someone when their appearance changes (e.g., their hairstyle or colour)
• Being unable to identify an unexpectedly encountered familiar person
• Walking past and accidentally ignoring familiar people
• Being unable to describe that face

I had no idea this was actually a condition, but these are things I’ve dealt with all my life. To be clear, I don’t have trouble recognising family and very close friends, but anyone else – well, it very much depends on context and an awful lot of luck.

I took three different self-assessment tests, and, I guess, no surprise to me really, it looks like I might well be impacted by prosopagnosia.

The film/TV issue is trivial, but I watch films with the plot summary from Wikipedia open so I can figure out who is who and what is happening. Or I drive my wife mad asking who that person is.

I’m forever having conversations with people when I have absolutely no idea who they are or if I’ve ever met them before. They seem to know me. I know we all get this sometimes, but for me it’s almost every time I’m out. My working hypothesis has always been I must have an unusual look or something, which enables a lot of people to remember me, but not vice versa. I guess it fitted the facts, but, on reflection, a bit odd!

I have coping strategies. In face-to-face meetings, I draw a plan of the room and write people’s names as I figure them out. Zoom/Teams meetings have been a revelation. I try and be good at very, very vague conversations.

Some recent experiences

To give an idea, though, these are some recent experiences.

Last week, a friend who I’ve met almost weekly in a pub for a decade or so sat at the table with a coat on. They don’t normally wear a coat, so I didn’t recognise them and thought someone new had joined our group. I rely on hair, clothes, and voice to recognise people. As the number of friends and acquaintances who are bald, middle-aged men with generic middle-aged-man clothes increases, it’s got harder and harder to tell them apart.

A colleague sat next to me on a train. I wasn’t expecting to see them, so I ignored them for the 1-hour trip, but I wondered why this stranger kept giving me odd looks. It was only when we got to the venue and I saw them there in context that I twigged it was someone I know quite well.

Friends of my wife often talk to me and then tell my wife I seemed to have no idea who they were. It’s because I didn’t! When my wife asks me to describe them, it’s a running joke that I say ‘generic human’.

The more people there are in a place, the harder I find it to tell people apart. It makes social events, especially work ones, fairly hard and tiring. People talk to me, they use my name, so clearly know who I am. I bluff. Do they just know me because they’ve seen me present, or have I known them for years? I often have no idea.

When I bump into colleagues at work, I often try to prompt them to talk about what they do so I can figure out who they are.

I avoid restaurants, as I can’t tell who’s serving my table. I hate getting trapped for ages because I have no idea who to ask for the bill. So I now stick to places where you pay before you eat.

I’ve just assumed I have the social skills of a gnat. Maybe I do! In a work capacity, I try and deal with it by always taking someone along with me to events who can recognise people. I think I’m absolutely fine when I’ve figured out who someone is.

I’ve never shared this with anyone other than my wife, who knows I think everyone looks more or less the same. It was a revelation to find someone who described the same experience.

I’m not sure how I feel about it. As I left the conference, a few more people chatted to me, used my name, but again I had no idea who they were. I don’t know if it made me feel better knowing I probably wasn’t just rude.

But apologies to all the people I’ve blanked over the years – it wasn’t personal.

And a final thought…

AI glasses with a camera that told me who people are would be a dream. But what a privacy nightmare.