GROUPING.
02 Aug 2019, 5:09 pm
Not sure if anyone can relate to this. Part of what I do with prosopragnosia (Faceblindness) is that I group people. I found to my horror a few months ago that I also group peoples usernames or their little photos ans it scares me. On another forum, I ended up confused and almost caused a problem when I grouped two members and thought it was the same person. This can be very confusing for me. I knew I do this with people as i faces... But to suddenly realize that I have also done this with usernames and their little pictures.... It is as if the realization of doing this means that how often have I done this before and how I could so easily say the wrong thing to the wrong person and upset them without intending to... It really makes me scared. It is as much as a shock to find this out as it is a shock when the realization that I share trailts of autism... But as the autism traits (More like asperges traits) don't bother me as yes, they may be annoying at times, but it is an inbuilt personality thing ... My character... I wouldn't be me without being who I am, so some strengths and weaknesses are neither here or there...
But the fear comes from realizing that I am grouping usernames..
I suddenly realized two members here I have grouped and I have realized that I have done this because I have just seen one post after the other where both replied, and I realized they are different people. It is scarey. I could so easily accidently mess things up.
Anyway. Anyone had similar experiences? How did you cope with it?
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02 Aug 2019, 6:53 pm
I took the prosopagnosia test and was not in clinical range. To my surprise (b/c I think I'm good at everything) I was well below average, bottom 12%. Huh? I recognize people! That guy at the work social last month looked familiar, I pissed him off by asking how. I tell myself that was an infrequent occurrence. Plus he's an A-hole; it was probably subconscious on my part. That's not helpful to you. Yes, I also group people. I do around the time I meet them, or what work group they are in --- at work they all kind of look alike anyway with similar names. I don't know folks individually on here, I think to myself that I have a "sense" of who each person is, but probably am overestimating that. I live in the moment, everything washes over me. I am not afraid of offending anyone, b/c I do my best, apologize when necessary, and ---- I'm used to offending folks. That sounds kind of pathetic, but there it is. In another online community I had a detailed spreadsheet about everyone. I consulted it regularly. How could anyone remember all that?
03 Aug 2019, 3:23 am
It could be with me (As often I am not sure when I do not recognise people) that there are times when I don't recognise people and times when I do. Maybe when I am worked up as i stressed I don't and maybe when I am calm I do? I do not know because the condition is such that only the few who say to me that I ignored them... Well, it is by them telling me that I know. I do have an idea as to what it is like in another person who has had it and that is with my Mum. I have seen her walk past people we know very well. She didn't know she had. Where we last lived there was a long path up the hill to get to the house. Once a lady came up the hill and my Mum said something like "Yes? What do you want?" as she assumed the person was a stranger. (The path was all our property and it aas lined with trees). The lady looked puzzled. She found out who it was. It was her Mum! She didn't recognise her.
I once had a similar moment where I knew that I knew a lady and a little boy from somewhere so I said "Hello" to them and walked past with the little boy tugging the mums hand. I reached the other end of the street and went in the queue at the bank, and all the time I was trying to think "Who are they?" I went through a list of people I knew in my mind and then it came to me who they were. My mother and my little brother. I lived with them, but because I was in town, I didn't expect to see them and it threw me off track, and my Mum didn't recognise me so... You can imagine it!
I was also told off for doing this to both my aunts on seperate occasions. One was at the same bank queue, where I knew I knew her but could not place who she was so I smiled and didn't go up to see her. (It could be anyone I have met in the street before. I can easily talk tostrangers because I may think I know them when I don't. As a child, walking round shops or in crowded places I used to go buzzerk if I parted contact with my Mum or Dad because I had a huge fear of losing them, as I could not tell who my parents were in the crowd. I hated when in shops my Mum would send me to get something as it took me ages to find her again, as I would be looking at every lady trying to work out if she was my Mum! I could have soo easily walked off with a stranger.
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03 Aug 2019, 7:12 am
Yes. 
I actually do this. For more than a decade.
Certain group of people, with similar traits, that I kept mistaking to one another. The same can be said with names, usernames.
So if I see someone I do thought I recognize, first thing was doubt myself that thought.
My cover is... The hilarity of it as much as possible that I could afford doing it.
If I have the choice, I'd give direct questions.
If I can afford it, I'd give more observation time and deduce if this is this specific person.
My only real work around or, go as far as making this prosopagnosia-like trait out of the way, was better attention and memory.
Really, why do I still recognize and not mistake someone from another if it's someone I know over 10 years ago as opposed to more recent than that?
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03 Aug 2019, 8:13 am
members of a website are not the same as people you IRL face-to-face, and its easier to confuse people.
I dont think that its the same thing as Prog.... (that condition in which you confuse faces).
I have lumped together pairs of people on WP, and had to train myself to realize that theyre seperate individuals.
Pairs that had very dissimilar names, but were of the same "demographic" (gender and age etc), and similar personalities, and/or similar opinions.
But this lumping together never caused a problem. I nipped it in the bud before I did something foolish like lecture person A about how wrong they were when they said something that was actually said by person B.
There was one exception. Was in a thread with a bunch of folks. One person had a name like "apple", and another had a name like "applesauce". At one point "Applesauce" praised the courage and intelligence of "Apple", and I jumped in and sarcastically praised Applesauce for shamelessly tooting his own horn like that (I hadnt noticed the different syllable in the names). Then Apple pointed out that he, and Applesauce were two different people, and I got embarrassed. But then other folks in the same conversation admitted that they had been confused by the similar names as well, and it wasnt just me. And a Mod even jumped in and agreed, and said "I just now checked their IP addresses to make sure that they werent sockpockets for each other, and they do seem to be two different people".
03 Aug 2019, 8:41 am
Wow! That is fascinating. I'll trade you one: During stress I have deja vu, so I think I've read a book, met a person or seen a show, when I haven't. I knew if was bad when I thought I'd read a book that my 3-year-old son randomly pulled off the new book shelf at the library. I stopped reading books. I read about a woman who had the a similar deja vu and returned her library card: "I've read all these books". Thankfully, my stress decreased and I was able to start reading new books and thinking it was the first time, so kept my card.
03 Aug 2019, 11:14 am
Wow! That is fascinating. I'll trade you one: During stress I have deja vu, so I think I've read a book, met a person or seen a show, when I haven't. I knew if was bad when I thought I'd read a book that my 3-year-old son randomly pulled off the new book shelf at the library. I stopped reading books. I read about a woman who had the a similar deja vu and returned her library card: "I've read all these books". Thankfully, my stress decreased and I was able to start reading new books and thinking it was the first time, so kept my card.
I often get those daja vous moments too. You have givem me a thought as I have not thought that it could be like you say where you have not done the thing like read the book but think you hve... But for me they have an actual significence where I can even have knowledge of the tiny details... Also I get (Which is along those lines) visions where I have seen the actual event that later happens, and it usually happens at least six months, if not years later. I also get dreams like this but while the visions are exact just as it is as I see it when it happens (Though sometimes I get it as a reversed plate vision where it happens exactly to the detail, but it is as if one has a camera film ad have turned the film the wrong way up and then developed it, but in a video form rather then a still photo... The daja vous moments are more like still photos if that makes sense), but the dreams, which I have to write down straight away are very much symbolic. They make perfect sense but are almost like a cartoon version if a future real event?
There's no way it could be my mind dreaming up some of these visions by itself because many things make no sense whatsoever so I almost ignore them, but at a future time things suddenly change where the vision is exact in every detail! There is no way that cam be my mind making it up. That is a vision direct from God, as people can't determine the future in that way. Not like in the visions I've had.
In regards to usernames. Why this came as a shock was that untill a few months ago I never knew I was doing it, and it could account for why certain people may have avoided me in the past? I do not know and may never know.
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