You who?

A friend told me yesterday that if anyone wants to find out something about me, all they have to do is read my blog. Everything is up here. From identity crises to teaching experiences, from lice problems to ass problems, it’s all there.

And that’s true…to a certain extent. Except I realized that there’s something I’ve never written about, something that anyone who knows me will vouch is a defining aspect of me:

I can’t recognize faces.

I know what you’re thinking – oh that’s not a big deal. I have a hard time remembering people too when I first meet them. No. I don’t have a hard time remembering people. I have a hard time remembering their face. I can spend hours talking to someone the first time I meet them, and then the next day, I might just walk past that person simply because I don’t recognize the face. It’s not that I remember the face and I can’t place it – it’s that I just can’t recognize it. But if you tell me your name, I’ll remember every single thing we spoke about the previous day.

Apparently, this is a medical condition. It’s called prosopagnosia. Face blindness: Where you can’t even recognize people who you see on a daily basis. Brad Pitt apparently has this. But I don’t think my condition is that bad – or it might just be.

Simply put – when I see a face, I don’t focus on eyes / nose / chin / cheeks etc. Probably the most defining features for me are hair and glasses. So if you’re usually a bearded person and decide to shave one day, don’t expect a hello from me. Or if you go from having very long hair to very short hair overnight, expect me to walk past you. Not because I no longer like you, only because I no longer know that you are you.

In case it isn’t evident, this can lead to a lot of socially difficult situations. People think I’m extra rude when I don’t acknowledge on a second or third (or even tenth) meeting. There have been occasions when I have hugged random strangers thinking they are acquaintances, and ignored acquaintances thinking are strangers. And because I can’t remember faces of others, I assume that they won’t remember mine. So I’m always surprised when people actually remember me.

And if you think this isn’t bad enough, ask me to describe the face of my closest friend. I wouldn’t be able to go past “She has long wavy hair…” You know how in movies, the police ask witnesses to describe the criminal, and they proceed to describe the shape of the eyes and the tilt of the nose and the little mole on the cheek – the whole time I’m thinking: how the hell are they doing this?! To me, that’s like a superpower, being able to notice facial features to such an extreme (or even at a basic level).

Basically, this whole rant is to tell you that the next time we meet, and I ignore you, and I say: it’s not you, it’s me. Well, it actually is me.