Face Blindness

I think I may have some mild form of 'prosopagnosia', or 'face blindness'.  That is, a difficulty or inability to recognize and distinguish faces.

Over the years in New York City, particularly as a contract and freelance worker, I met a lot of new people, in groups.  I'd go onsite with a new client and start interacting regularly with twenty or thirty new people, all at once.  This never posed much of a problem for me.  Partially because of physical spaces - I would tend to encounter the same people in specific departments, offices, at the same work stations or in the same meeting rooms.  And, in retrospect, I have always relied heavily on space, geography.  But most of all, in New York, there was almost always an enormous diversity of people, particularly in my work environments.  By ethnicity, age, expressiveness, size, gender, dress, hair, everything.  I can easily recognize and differentiate people whose appearances span the human spectrum.

However, here in Appalachia, I have met maybe a hundred (?) new people by name over the last six months.  And I often have trouble recognizing them next time I see them.  I have no idea I met them before.  Especially if I am meeting them in a different physical space.  And unfortunately, I have seemed rude several times, I know, or at least puzzlingly suddenly less friendly.  It's no coincidence that most of these people are medium-build, white, middle-aged to older folks, with generally similar dress, expressiveness, and traditional/conservative hair.  If they tell me their name or remind me of something we previously mentioned in conversation, I can place them.  It's here that I first realized the extent to which I have always relied on physical spaces to suggest who a person is.  For instance, when I met the bank manager, who I very well knew, in a store, I looked right past him and fell silent through several minutes of a conversation in which I more naturally should have joined.

I'm not completely insensible to recognizing any given person in future.  I can eventually suss out anyone's relatively distinguishing features and recognize them forever after.  But if they are very similar demographically and in style to most folks around, I need a lot of time to look at them, and be comfortable looking at them. 

The first time I really encountered my face blindness was in college.  I had attended an all-girl's school the previous six years.  And when I got to college, I could not tell most boys apart.  If the kid had an unusual hairstyle or build or something like that, then I could recognize him.  Or if he always sat in approximately the same seat in a classroom.  But otherwise, or if I passed him walking across campus, I was lost.  It didn't help that there seemed to be so many kids named Dan or, ugh, Dave.