new thread
I often go to stores and other public places and almost every time I go there will be someone who recognizes me and says something like "Merle, hey, how's it going" and I'll have no clue who they are but I'll say something like "hey, how's it hanging" and I will keep walking trying to think of who they are. If they know my name I guess they met me at some stage in my life but I can't remember them but they can remember me because a guy with long hair is so much easier to remember I guess. Right? I don't want to brag but on some days you would almost think that I'm a rock star in a public place because of the way everyone recognizes me and I can only recognize a few of them. Does anyone else have the same thing happen to them? If so what do you think is a good way to tell these people you have no clue who they are without them getting offended and saying things like "You mean you don't remember me?, how could you forget me? we worked together" or something like that? I'm not complaining about this because I know that some people will kill for a little recognition, I'm just asking how I should handle it or enjoy it better, thanks
Merle, I identify with what you've just said 100%. The answer in my case is not going to be at all what you think....
Some people are born without the usual ability to recognize people by their faces, and I am one of those people. We use other things to tell people apart, generally selected in childhood. Thereafter the things we use that "really work" are for the most part unchangeable. Hair is the one thing most frequently selected, so quite a few of us end up having lots of longhaired friends, since being able to recognize your friends is really cool. :-)
For many of us it is also unthinkable that we would not have a "face" ourselves, which means we end up with a fierce longhair identity. All this identity stuff goes on in the subconscious, the same place that sexual orientation goes on at, and it is just as unchangeable. Also like sexual orientation, much of it sets in early childhood.
The end result is that a LOT of "face blind" guys end up being longhairs. So yeah, this is on topic here.
I was born with the condition but did not realize it until I was 49. The reason is that people just don't talk about the subject so it never occurs to you. I have 20/20 vision, so a vision deficit was the last thing on my mind!
I co-founded a support group for people with the condition and wrote up what we've learned to help others. You'll see from that material, linked below, that I even failed to recognize my own mother once. ;-)
I'm not saying you have this condition, but if you read through the linked material, you will soon know the answer. Drop me a personal e-mail to bill@choisser.com if you want to talk more about this.
Thanks Bill, I can't say that I'm one of those people who can be shown 1000 faces with the names of each person and then be able to remember all of them later but I don't think I have face blindness. Although maybe your right when you say on your website that a lot of these people who recognize me are the type who look for people easy to recognize like me to try to be friends with and then kind of shun people who all look alike. Sometimes people who look alike can be a problem though. Maybe this will help you with your problem Bill, Have you ever tried looking at how big peoples double chins are to recognize people? Or how bad the frown lines are above the nose? Or how bad the horizontal forehead lines are? Or how bad the hairline has receded or how thin the hair has gotten on people? I can think of a video which has helped me recognize people better that you could buy but you would be using it for a different purpose than it is intended for. This set called "facial magic" which you can get at the as seen on tv section at K mart has a video in it that tells how to stop wrinkles from forming and talks about different types of wrinkles and double chins and other things like that you get as you age and the video tells how to make these wrinkles go away. The video is pretty funny to watch and because it makes you notice wrinkles and double chins, wether you do the exercises and use the facial cream or not it will make you likely to look at other peoples wrinkles and double chins, therefore making it easier for you to recognize other people. I have become more confident myself about who people are that I was not so sure about before watching the video.
I'm glad for you of course! It's a real nusiance. One doesn't
identify with it like one does with "being a longhair", so it's not like I wish for the world to have more people with it. :-)
One thing medical science has not delved into is whether there are severe and mild cases - tests are just now being developed to accurately diagnose the former. If it is like most other impairments, though, they will eventually find people fall all along a spectrum, with there being far more mild cases than severe.
"Why do people want to look alike!" is a question that we had to answer to help us figure a lot of stuff out. What we realized is that people want to look enough like other people that they feel they fit in, but different enough that they look like an individual. Where they fall as these two opposites tug at them depends upon how they see things in their own eyes, of course.
Long hair provides a lot more interest - more variety - to one's appearance than does short. So one could surmise that longhaired people are on an average less adept at telling people apart. As a group we may not have many "face blind" people among us, but we likely have quite a few who are not "face geniuses".
Mild cases are nothing to worry about (there's nothing to be done even for the severe ones) - being slightly less adept at something is just being part of the human rainbow. In Chapter 12 of the material we get into why people choose to look alike, and suggest there's a reason certain professions end up with all the clean-cut suit wearers. It might be of interest to longhairs in general who are thinking of career choices.
Merle: You're right, of course. Longhairs are still scarce enough that people tend to remember you. I've had mine long for about 7 years, and the difference in the number of people who remember me is huge. Among other benefits, restaurant waiters and Maitres d' mistake me for a regular, even though I may only eat there occasionally. This gets me great service (but be sure they remember you're the long-haired guy who tips really well, and not the other way around). As for not being able to remember other people, I have always had more or less the same problem. Your way of dealing with it is the same one I've seen recommended by politicians and others who are widely recogized: just smile, wave, and say something like, "Nice to see ya," (or "How's it hangin'?). If they were a close co-worker or acquaintance, you'd remember them. If it's a case where you do remember their face, but not their name, then the only solution is to fess up: "I'm so embarrassed, but I'm drawing a blank on your name. Sometimes I swear I'm in the beginning stages of Alzheimer's."
. . . JP in san diego.
So they mistake you for a regular even though you only go once in a while huh? So I guess when a guy with long hair does something not only is it more memorable but it seems like it was done more recently than it really was! Now if only the world would look at heavy metal videos that way instead of putting it into the 80's outdated catagory when they see them.
I have noticed the same thing even though I don't have real long hair. My hair is cut in a bob below my ears with bangs. It isn't what you guy would probably consider long but it is a lot different than all these guys with buzz cuts (Yuck! So mundane). Anyway, it seems that once I am introduced to a person and then don't see them for a long time, when I do see them again they remeber me like I am their next door neighbor even though sometimes I do not remeber them. This seems to be a frequent occurrence and I think that it is simply because I don't look like every Joe Blow on the street. I love being different and expressing MY style and not the style that is associated with the male stereotype.
So the less you look like the average Joe Blow the more people will remember you huh? Do you have anything you do to take advantage of all this attention you get? thanks
Well in the business world it is good to know a wide array of people and to have those people remeber you because you never know who or when you will have to get in touch with them for something. In todays world it is who you know not what you know so being out of the ordinary and easily remebered is a good thing to me.
I've always found the recognition thing both useful and occasionally undesireable. While it's handy for store and bank clerks to remember you, sometimes you'd just like to walk around unnoticed and blend in. Social anominity is one of those little sacrifices we make. It depends on where you are, though. While in an office building, you may be the only long-haired man a receptionist sees all day, at an arts festival, you may pretty well blend in with the crowd.