TIL I’m helping out by never changing my wardrobe.
Sidenote: I’m not face blind (I struggle with names instead), but I also sometimes struggle with recognizing people I only met once if I see them in a new context. Possibly because my brain doesn’t fully commit people to memory unless I meet them at least twice. This is a problem, because people recognize me after meeting me once, and it makes for awkward second interactions.
Oh man I can’t remember names for shit. I think I’m whatever the opposite of face blind is, like I remember people’s faces forever after just seeing them once and can usually remember the context I saw them in days or weeks later even if I never interacted with them. I think this really colors how my memory of people works because I basically don’t ever think about people’s names in my head, I sort of refer to them by face, which probably doesn’t make a lot of sense. It also means I pretty much always have to actively try to remember people’s names, otherwise I’ll hear it and immediately forget, like 2 seconds after someone tells me their name if I don’t repeat it in my head I’ve already forgotten it. I’ve learned to mask both of these things because I find it’s embarrassing to forget peoples names, especially someone I interact with a lot, and people are sometimes unsettled being remembered with clarity by a stranger.
I actually used to learn names by associating the face with the faces of other people I knew with the same name. In the area I lived at the time, it wasn’t uncommon to know multiple people with the same given name, so this helped quite often. Now I live in an area where there is very little overlap, and my brain seems to have fully abandoned that approach, even when I meet someone sharing a name with someone I know.
Thankfully, hearing someone’s given name often jolts my memory and I suddenly remember the full name. That’s at least somewhat redeeming after the initial awkwardness.
TIL I’m helping out by never changing my wardrobe.
Sidenote: I’m not face blind (I struggle with names instead), but I also sometimes struggle with recognizing people I only met once if I see them in a new context. Possibly because my brain doesn’t fully commit people to memory unless I meet them at least twice. This is a problem, because people recognize me after meeting me once, and it makes for awkward second interactions.
Oh man I can’t remember names for shit. I think I’m whatever the opposite of face blind is, like I remember people’s faces forever after just seeing them once and can usually remember the context I saw them in days or weeks later even if I never interacted with them. I think this really colors how my memory of people works because I basically don’t ever think about people’s names in my head, I sort of refer to them by face, which probably doesn’t make a lot of sense. It also means I pretty much always have to actively try to remember people’s names, otherwise I’ll hear it and immediately forget, like 2 seconds after someone tells me their name if I don’t repeat it in my head I’ve already forgotten it. I’ve learned to mask both of these things because I find it’s embarrassing to forget peoples names, especially someone I interact with a lot, and people are sometimes unsettled being remembered with clarity by a stranger.
I actually used to learn names by associating the face with the faces of other people I knew with the same name. In the area I lived at the time, it wasn’t uncommon to know multiple people with the same given name, so this helped quite often. Now I live in an area where there is very little overlap, and my brain seems to have fully abandoned that approach, even when I meet someone sharing a name with someone I know.
Thankfully, hearing someone’s given name often jolts my memory and I suddenly remember the full name. That’s at least somewhat redeeming after the initial awkwardness.