Trouble Recognizing Faces?

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Anyone else have trouble recognizing faces they should be familiar with? I can see someone I work with out in public and not realize who they are.

Kinda curious if it may be from me being uncomfortable with eye contact. I think I kinda blurry out what I'm seeing when I force myself to make eye contact.

Yeah, I also struggle with eye contact.

In high school I was voted "most likely to not recognise a classmate out of uniform"
(Also "most likely to be seen leaning against a lamppost" )

I have difficulty recognising static images.
I need to build a map of transitions between emotions and then recognise a particular smile or motion before I can identify a photo accurately.

I'm always surprised when I do recognise people faces when they're not in their usual place

So yeah I probably do have trouble recognising people's faces

I like to try and work out what people would look like if they had no hair and usually most people look the same bald so it's no wonder really

A common problem, and it seems to be getting worse with age, especially when encountering people where you don’t expect them.

But then, consider the data available in anyone's face, and how changeable they are, and how many people you see each year; do our brains have that much capacity?

I usually don't rely on only the face to recognize people, but the general impression: face, hair, the size and the shape of the body. Then there is the posture, voice and the way the usually dress. If I was presented to a collection of head shots of familiar celebrities of the same age and with the same hair color and hair cut then I would have a problem knowing who-is-who. One of my closest friends that I have know since childhood is a short bald guy with an average head shape, face and body shape. In the last couple of years I have at two occasions approached short bald guys in gym clothes without realizing my mistake until they started to speak.

It takes me a moment if they're not in their usual context but I usually recognise them. I don't look at eyes much so def don't spend long enough studying people's faces, maybe that has something to do with it.

Face blindness is apparently common among those of us on the Spectrum. I know I've got it.

I don't know whether it contributes to me being less social or the other way around but it is real.

And I long ago picked a compensation strategy: be nice to everyone.

Thank you guys for the replies. Before being diagnosed I thought I might have early onset dementia or something.

Kind of a relief to find out it seems to be fairly common with AS.

Isn't it funny how we jump to the worst diagnosis possible before we consider the least serious

I'm glad we've help you in with regards to that

If I have not seen someone in a long time, it takes me a minute to remember, which can be awkward. If it's outside of a particular environment, like say someone from the workplace that can really throw me off.

The eye contact thing I am awful at, which is why I always feel more comfortable with sunglasses on as I probably come across as less odd or aspie like. Wish I could just wear them all the time, but I've noticed that if you do indoors it comes off as suspicious.

I think usually I recognise, sometimes I don't, sometimes I recognise 10 minutes after they've walked away from me.

Face blindness sometimes makes things "interesting".

When I was 42 I was at a party and met a nice gal. About the right age and pleasant to talk to. We both were in the military at the same rank and in related technical specialties. We both had comparable college degrees. We both enjoyed Science Fiction...and it turns out our tastes in music, while quite different, did overlap. However we lived nontrivial distances from the city, in opposite directions, and her normal schedule would make it difficult to both go to many of the same events.

I enjoyed chatting with her at that party and never expected to see her again. (That was not an example of an Aspie having face blindness, that was an example of an Aspie lacking social confidence.)

Four months later she telephoned me (in discussing my activities I'd given her enough information to get my phone number) to ask a favor. She knew someone who was looking for a job and remembered from our previous conversation what company I worked for and thought I could help her friend submit a resume to it. I agreed, of course. Note, there was no reason for us to meet in person for that.

But while we were chatting I learned she was doing a "local" move and needed boxes. And I happened to have a collection of boxes to help coworkers make local moves! Sharing the boxes required meeting in-person and we planned that...in the parking lot where she worked, which was about midway between our homes.

Then, and only then, did I get adventurous enough to ask if I could take her to supper when I met her to share the boxes.

A few parting observations:
- She was happy to have supper with me. Um. It turns out she was annoyed when I didn't ask for her phone number when we met at that party.
- Meeting her in her (very large) work parking lot was "interesting". I have face-blindness. I got there very early and stood around my car hoping someone would stop and it would be her. Fortunately, it was. (Or, at least she tells me she's the same person!)
- We married in 2000 and are still happily married.

But still if we get separated in, for instance, a grocery store I'm still not great at picking her out when I see her across the store.

I'm wondering if this explains my attraction to redheads.
They're easier to find in a crowd.

Wow, that's a compelling story and I feel like I can relate.

Years ago I had a work friend I got fairly close to before she left the company. A month or two after she left I was approached in the grocery store by someone who looked familiar but I didn't recognize. After a minute or two of talking she got mad and walked away, obviously realizing I didn't recognize her. It was later that I realized she was my pretty close friend from work and I had just destroyed the friendship.

Who knows how many times I've walked by people from work without recognizing them. Who knows how many of them noticed it happening. One of the many ways I've presented myself as a ahole to people, innocently.

Last edited by iScream on 14 Dec 2025, 3:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Maybe that's why I dated a couple and ended up getting married to one.