Recognising women.

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As a man, I massively struggle to recognise women I 'know'. I am better at men.

For example, I drove past my neighbour yesterday. I looked at her because she is attractive (only briefly). She looked back and smiled.

I blushed and looked away.

Later I saw her car parked next door and realised what had happened!

I must have seemed rude/weird.

Is that normal?

Not recognizing people 'out of context' is a symptom of face blindness. I have this problem and it can be quite embarrassing at times.

Yes, I'm worse at recognizing women.

ChampionRobot, from the way you wrote your thread title, I thought you were going to say that you had trouble recognizing that women were women.

I have a hard time recognizing people out of context, both genders. It happened to me just the other day. I was at Home Depot and our friend's dad happened to be there and he saw me and came over and said hi. I apologized and said that I did not recognize him. When he told me who he was I told him that I have Asperger's and that I have trouble with recognizing people out of context. He understood and was totally cool about it.

When I used to teach swimming and when I was a lifeguard, I used to have a really hard time recognizing people when they had clothes on. But that is not uncommon for Aquatics people and it's always a running joke at the pools!

If a person whom I recognize in a certain hairstyle gets a new hairstyle--forget about it--I won't recognize her, unless she speaks. I tend to recognize people by their voices and their hairstyle. If I concentrate hard, I might then be able to recognize a person by their face.

How is everything, Skibum?

LOL! Definitely don't change your hair on me!

I'm doing okay today. I just woke up, I get super exhausted and drained when I have sensory overload, especially if it goes on all day for a few days. It's great that I don't have to go to a job everyday like I used to in the past. I used to push through all the physical symptoms of sensory overload when I had to go to work and I used to do that almost every day. I was so bad that I was like a dead zombie on the inside but pushing myself to look like a normal functioning NT on the outside. I am sure my adrenal glands are damaged from pushing them too hard. Now I can rest whenever I need to. It's very hard to rest sometimes with all the noise I hear and all the things I feel but at least I can try to rest anytime of the day or night that I need to. My husband is so great for supporting me like this. But I feel a little better now so hopefully I will have the strength to do the house chores that I needed to do yesterday. I wasn't able to get the trash and recycling out on time this morning but that's okay. There is a company dumpster nearby and I can put the recycling out with next week's.

i know the names of more male actors then female actors

I'm amazed that you are so liberated that you could tell strangers that you have Asperger's! And that the stranger just understood!

Maybe NT's are "getting it," to some extent, after all.

I wouldn't be able to do that.

Our friend's dad is not a stranger, we have known him for a little while. But I do tell strangers all the time and I have never had a bad response. I have had some stupid responses but never mean ones except from people who are related to me but not from people not related to me. People have heard of Austism and Asperger's and most people know at least one person who has it so they are not unfamiliar. They may not understand it but they have heard of it. So I find it very easy to tell anyone. And I know that it is different for everyone but for me being Aspie is like having brown eyes or brown skin. It's just who I am and I am not ashamed of it or embarrassed about it or uncomfortable about it at all. And I like people to know because I can do and say very weird things because of it so if they know then they will understand why I might be a weirdo sometimes and they won't be mean to me. If they are they are just bullies but most people I meet are not. I get embarrassed or ashamed about some things I might do or say because of my Asperger's but I am never embarrassed or ashamed about having Asperger's and I don't have any problems letting people know. And most of the time people thank me because I spend time helping them understand that we are real "normal" every day people that they don't have to be uncomfortable around.

Yesterday I was wearing the Autism Walk/Expo tshirt I bought at the Autism Expo and the cashier at one of the stores I had gone to asked me if I had done the walk as well. She had done it. I told her that I had missed the walk but bought the shirt but that I really appreciated her and anyone else who walked to raise money because I am an Aspie. She was so glad to meet me because her son is also but he is more severely affected than I am. She started telling me all about him because she felt a comradeship with me about that. It was really nice.

I had to go the the bank last week too and the teller, who had kind of known me from seeing me all the time told me that she was really out of it from taking Benadryl. I told her that I almost died taking that once because it made my heart race. She said she had a friend who had that same reaction and she was wondering why some people react like that. I asked if her friend was Autistic and if it had to do with neurological reactions to the medicine. I told her I had Asperger's and she told me that she was surprised because I looked so normal. Then she told me that her daughter is a teacher at a place for Autistic children and I should be really proud of myself because I can make eye contact and carry on a normal conversation. So I wrote her a four page letter telling her that many Autistic people can walk and talk and carry on a conversation just fine and if they don't make eye contact it's because they choose not to or have difficulty because of sensory overload and that the only reason we make eye contact is to accommodate the needs of NT's. I wrote the letter to help educate her since she deals with the public and to help her daughter understand her students better. She was really grateful and it really helped her and she is going to have her and her daughter check out WP so that they can learn more.

So I find that a lot of times when I tell people, even strangers, it turns into a fantastic opportunity to help people learn about the Spectrum. And I think it is very important to do that because the more people become educated the better it is for everyone.

Last edited by skibum on 06 May 2014, 9:32 am, edited 2 times in total.

I think that Skibum felt able to 'fess up because she actually knows her friend's Dad quite well. *edit - Skibum made the point before me*

I have a problem with face blindness, but I have only just worked out that it is mostly with women. When my daughter was at University she would often send pictures of herself and her friends in clubbing mode - to me, they all looked the same, and I had to ask the rest of the family which one was my daughter. In recent years, I have occasionally been unable to be sure that the man walking towards me with a big smile on his face was my son. And, even more recently, I have developed an eyesight defect, so that there is always a couple of bits missing from anything that I look at.

I have more trouble recognizing men than women. I'm a chick and I have trouble recognizing faces both in daily life and in films. Women are easier for me, I think because their hair styles tend to be more different from one another than men's. However, I do still have trouble recognizing both men and women.

I have a much more difficult time remembering women than men. I'm terrible at names with both sexes, but often I'll look at a woman I just met that day and not recall having met her. I think women's faces are all too similar. That's just me tho.

Yay - films and TV programmes - they are all so perfectly formed, it's hard to tell the difference. I prefer books - they allow me to create my own mental images, and you don't need a pause button when you need a break.

That darned forum timing!

although the original post sounds like propasagnosia [or however its spelt] am unable to recognise people as all people look the same to self, all people are just lines,colours;a generic shapeless object-am unable to discriminate things like race though have got perfect vision,its just a part of having severe autism.
am able to recognise people by voice most and small sensory details that never change.

Hi KoR - how well can you differentiate between different animals (dogs, for example)? The variety of human appearance is not dissimilar to the variety of other animals' appearance. If the inability to differentiate between individuals is restricted to other humans, then it may be linked to some kind of communication problem. But if the problem extends to other animal species, then there may be some kind of visual defect.