Seeing People Out of Their Context

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It always feels weird to me to see people in places I'm not accustomed to seeing them. Sometimes I'm happy to see them but it still feels odd, sometimes it's just plain weird. Sometimes I don't recognize them for a few minutes. It's not like these are people I usually see in a uniform or something that would change their appearance drastically -- just seeing people from classes at the store or from work at the gym, etc. Does anyone else feel odd on finding people where they don't belong?

Regards,

Patricia

Very much so!
I can't go out on works parties, because it's too weird to see them there in their jeans holding a drink or whatever. It somehow seems false, or just......wrong!
(Never mind the small-talk hell).
I met someone from my evening class a couple of days ago in town for a coffee and that felt weird too.
Maybe it's a case of keeping life in little boxes, and that includes the people too?

I get this, I saw my hairdresser bying a coffee, I recognised her car outside the shop but then I saw her inside and it was very strange.

Also problems with recognizing people out of their normal context.
In my mind I keep a list with possible people I can encounter in a certain place. When I see people on another place I cannot get their identity, I know them from somewhere but I cannot access the name.

Same problem.

I also don't recognize people when I see them in other contexts.

For instance, I play soccer, and I find it hard to recognize the other players if I see them in normal clothes and not at the soccer field.

There is one guy named Alex that I've played soccer against for years, but I never saw him off the field until last week. He came up to me at a party and said hey, and I had no idea who he was. He realized that I didn't recognize him, but he just thought I was drunk, so it worked out ok.

That's pretty normal, actually. It may be even stronger for those who predominantly think associatively.

yes, it's weird. I have trouble recognising people in new environments.

Yes, I usually have to meet people at least five or six times before I start to recognize them by sight, but even if I think that I've 'learned' them, I can be completely thrown again by meeting them in a different setting or seeing them dressed very differently.

I think you're right about thinking associatively. I remember my mother laughing about not "placing" people right off. About a week ago, I was at a party and someone walked over and began a conversation with me. I had no idea who she was until someone else casually mentioned her name when addressing her. She was a professor from whom I'd taken a course. I was so grateful to the other student for saying her name.

Regards,

Patricia

I have this. I remember once I took a few seconds to recognise my brother when I saw him at a train station, because I don't normally see him there. Another time, I saw my composition teacher, who I spent an hour a week with in a small room for four years, and he was out of his normal context and wearing different clothing than usual, and I was only sure it was him because of the sound of his voice and the content of his conversation. Another example is when I saw someone who used to talk to me at the bus stop on my way to uni; I didn't recognise her when she was directly facing me, but when she sat down I did, because I'd only ever seen her in profile. These are just a few examples; this happens to me all the time.

Same thing here. Whenever someone isn't in there normal 'place' it's like having 2 worlds in one place and i get terrible confused how to think or behave XD