I can't tell people apart

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Seriously.

Like if I'm friends with two blonde women or two bald guys or whatever, I can't tell which one is which except by what they're wearing.

I know it's because of lack of facial recognition but is there a way to improve that?

People think it's rude. There was a boy at my school called James. He was blond with the same haircut as Tom. In our school we wore a uniform. I said 'hello Tom'. He said 'I'm not Tom' like I was being rude or weird.

But to me it's almost like they're twins.

How rude do people think it is and is there something I can do to improve it? Would adults understand if I said 'I'm really bad at facial recognition, it's nothing personal'?

Yes it's a hang-up from school and yes I'm 30 but I have social anxiety and, obviously, autism. So I don't know how inappropriate this is and I suspect it's very.

I don't know any solutions, TUF, but I have it too. My brother has two stepsons who are 19 and 20 years old. I've known them for a few years and socialised with them at family functions. I have no idea which is which. I will sort them out for the duration of the visit based on their clothes, but the next time I see them I have no idea.

I got the worst score my ASD assessor had ever seen, on the Prosopagnosia test.

You aren't alone.



Here's a link from Amythest Schaber on the topic.

A person here on WP complained that when they watched the original Star Trek series they could never tell Sulu from Checkov.

Funny thing is that those two actually DO look a lot alike in a certain way(two young guys with dark hair, and with similar Beatle-ish Sixties haircuts, and identical Star Fleet uniforms). Except that most TV viewers would be appalled that a person couldn't tell them apart because "they are not even of the same race!. One guy is White, and the other is East Asian!".

So you are not alone.

It must suck.

As for avoiding social gaffes: you cant go around wearing a sign that says "I AM FACE BLIND". All that you can do is after a recognition mistake just say that you are "sorry, but I am face blind". Maybe toss in a "I have trouble telling you young guys/girls apart". If the person is over a certain age that bit of flattery might help defuse things.

Most of us have some circuitry in the brain that magnifies the human face, and its features. So the buildings, cars, and even bodies of folks walking around on the other side of the street that are just part of the landscape are just..part of the landscape. While the faces of those same folks just kinda leap out at you. A balding person looks like they have a forehead ten feet tall. I am exaggerating a little bit, but that's the idea. So you have to somehow force your mind to do by rote what everyone else's brain does automatically- which is to study features. Take note of noses, and their length, and width. etc.

Good ideas, naturalplastic. It's especially difficult for me, and probably others on the spectrum, because I don't make eye contact. I seldom even look at a person's face.

Regardless, when I can study faces on television or in books without fear of making eye contact, I still fail miserably at recognising people. I seldom watch movies or television because I have no clue who is whom. Likewise I can't watch shows with uniforms or similar styles of clothing (war movies, Star Trek) because I'd be totally lost.

I dated a guy for a few years and could never recall or picture his face in my mind the whole time. I could describe it to you based on the descriptive words I had memorised, but I couldn't piece the parts together to see a whole.
(Now I'm glad, lol).

That's why I never call anyone by their names. The system falls down when I have to introduce unknown#1 to unknown#2... I have to pretend to faint or something. It would be much easier if everyone wore a name badge.

Ha Trueno, maybe that's a way to do it.

I would study facial features like Natural Plastic suggests but wouldn't that come across as staring? A lot of us know how much NTs hate that!

I'm glad I don't have it as bad as you do, Isabella. But I almost do have that. My cousins and Auntie could literally be twins if time travel existed. What I mean is, to me, they look like the same people but years apart. In photos, I can't tell. Me and mum are the same - there's pictures where I look exactly the same as mum. And at 11 I was indistinguishable from a boy. I found a photo of me from when I was about that age and thought 'strange, I can't remember wearing that jumper and trousers or where that was taken'. It was a picture of my biological father!

Mostly, though, it's just acquaintances I have the issue with. It's hard too because I struggle with remembering names to begin with.

Maybe I'll just explain the face blindness thing.

Would older people think I was taking the pee if I said the 'you younger guys' thing?

Test Name: Cambridge Face Perception Test
Mobile Version Available?: Yes
Primary Domains: face perception
Demo Link:
http://www.testmybrain.org/tests/cambri ... PTnew.html
Psychometrics: Excellent
Time (minutes): 5.8
Description of Test: Sort faces by how similar they are to a target face shown on screen.

I think "you younger guys / girls" is a cute way to respond.

In my case, I don't admit that I am face-blind. I don't let anyone know, because I feel embarrassed not recognising my own extended family. I might add that I have a very small family. When my brother's stepsons join us there are only about eight people together including me, my brother and my mother. After a few years of such gatherings I still don't know the boys apart! If I saw them out of context like on the street I wouldn't even stop and say hi. I wouldn't know them at all.

It's really frustrating. My nephew has his friends in my house all the time. I know the main guys but beyond that I just say hi and hope for the best. This weekend there will be about forty of his friends in my house so I will just hide.

I hope your new strategies work, TUF.

well i relate to u guys, tho my problem is a bit different. i do recognize people, mostly. by a combination of their face, colors, >voice< and mannerisms, then their body frame and, IMPORTANT >by the way they move<. point is all that takes knowing a person. like, seing them a lot. when i know somebody well, i can tell their mood by just the way they type in chat (seing nothing but their chatting). so, my problem is not exactly in that face recognition blockage u guys have, its in my f****d up vision. i simply dont see the face from distance, because my eyes cant render it untill the person is close enough. so i can easily recognize someone i know and tell them apart from a stranger, who looks like them. close up. and it does take a lot of my brain resourses. but i will f**k up with ppl i dont know well enough. and they do get very offended that way, oh she didnt see me. so facial recognition blockage, or eyesight failing, result the same.

as to people with hard blockage, and issue with constant peers, maybe just maybe, if those people are not... careless... about u, maybe u could explain it and ask them to do something to help u? like wearing some badge that would help u identify them? this is a disability in earnest, after all. so u are as entitled to the help, as blind ppl are entitled to braille script. at least in ideal world xD

Greet people first without guessing their names. Good morning. Good Afternoon, Hi, just smile with eye contact.
The last works with the receptionist sometimes before I walk through the door, as she can see out the window, if she isn't busy with a call.

there is a huge lot of people i dont even know by names, but know by "face" (aka the compex of things i mentioned). like well, other parents of my kid's groupies in kg. we see each otehr most of days but we dont really hang out. but we say hello when we meet. and remembering names alltogather is my problem. i will recognize a person, and then i would be screwing my brain trying to remember if they ever introduced themself, and what is there name if they did. so ya i do that "nameless communication" trick a lot. and sometimes i have to do that totally degrading move of "could u please remind me, oh person i've known for years, what is ur name?"

I don't know if this is seen as stalkerish but I know people by the conversations we've had. I can remember word for word conversations I had in my childhood and teens and I'm 30.

This is why I'm so stubborn about if I like someone or not. It feels vivid to me. So if someone was really nice to me back in 97 or really nasty to me in 01, it feels like it was last week or a fortnight ago.

its how some ppl's memory works. well, it can fail. it does sometimes. but when it doesnt, i remember everything. every word that caught my attention. expression. typing cadence if it was (like most of my conversations) on chat. backgound noises, smells etc. there are things in surface memory, that can playback any time with vivid precision, and there is archived things. that i can find and playback if i need and know what im looking for (this f*****g database is f*****g huge. operating it is a separate type of PitA). and then there is amnesia. things pushed out of my ability to remember. mostly traumatic. years of my life had been hidden from me like that before i broke the seal. still happens from time to time. in some cases i do that half-consciously. like taking a pack of memories and sealing it, with note "there be centipedes". a lot of adaptation, ya. eidetic memory can be a gift, and a curse. depending on the memory.

That is a good video on face blindness.