Face recognition

by whmon Sat Nov 13 2010, 22:23

I am really bad at recognising faces. I seem to have some sort of mental bock there. If I see you in 'the wrong place' I don't recognise you. In the past, I have been accused of being a snob for not acknowledging people and it is simply because I have not recognised them because I have seen them in an unexpected place. I tend to overcompensate now, if I see someone vaugly familiar I'll say hello. Sometimes I get it wildly wrong.

There is a road I walk down regularly on the way to the woods. It seems to be populated by tall thin men wearing glasses who are in their 70s who are always outside doing something in their gardens. All of them are very pleasant and always speak, and they all have dogs.

The other day I was walking through the town and overtook a tall thin man in his 70s wearing glasses. As I strode past him (I always powerwalk) I said 'hello', I got past him then stopped, turned to face him and said 'by the way, I've seen a few dead hedgehogs around'. Then I continued striding on. The reason I told him about the dead hedgehogs was that it is unusual to see so many dead ones and therefore someone must have been putting some poison out and as a dog owner he should be aware of it. But-the look of total confusion he gave me made me realise, when I was several yards away, that he didn't know who the hell I was and that I was obviously a total nutcase. For the next hour or so I alternated between side-splitting laughter and total embarassment.