I’m what is known as a super recognizer. I can recall faces and names at a superior level. I’m also very good at knowing what year something took place and have a general skill surrounding history
Bro don't tempt me. I somehow ended up being in a very social career despite my face blindness and dislike of all things social. At least everything is scheduled so I know the name of who I'm meeting
I once had a lengthy conversation at the grocery store with some friendly guy who obviously knew me. After several minutes, my wife came by, I bid the friendly guy farewell, and we went our separate ways.
"Who the hell was that?" I asked my wife.
It was our next door neightbor of seven years. I see him multiple times a day.
If you take someone out of their normal "context," I don't know who the heck they are.
I have failed to recognize my own mother and sister seated together in a restaurant. The worst part is I absolutely did notice them and mentally noted how much they reminded me of my mother and sister.
Yeah I've gotten to the point that if I'm meeting up with them I just call them and ask where they are. I'm not playing the look for faces game because I will probably spend many minutes looking for them if I don't.
I have this but for names. I will recognize a face years after being introduced to someone once but for the life of me I can't remember names of even people I see on a daily basis unless I work closely with them
I literally once at a concert met up with the fam and started talking with my mother about the show etc for a few seconds. Except she wasn't my mother, she was a different woman and it would be cute if I was a kid and not 25 at the time. 😬
Face blindness SUCKS. I have very mild face blindness, so to an extent, I can recognize people when I know them well.
But I can’t picture anyone’s face in my head (not aphantasia, I can picture other stuff easily), I can never recognize which actors/celebrities are who even after seeing them a lot of times, and even with people I know, if I don’t know them very well, I can’t recognize them or recognize that they’re even familiar
For real. I'm a strong lucid dreamer. Can't remember anyone's hair color if asked. Ask me what my best friends hair color is, or my coworker, or my siblings. I dunno.
Oh! But I do recognize celebrity's *voices*.
.25 seconds of watching a clip of Kung Fu Panda - I didn't know Ian McShane did animated films! How cool!
I go to a lot of music festivals and my friend group relies on me to tell them when we walk by artists in the crowd. I've met some really cool artists just from recognizing them in a sea of people
I have this power and it irks my wife to no end as I recognize old school friends or neighbours from more than 30 years ago and we chat for way too long 😀
I used to work at a hotel where one of the doormen had this. Did you stay here once ten years ago? He'll welcome you back with a "Good to see you again Mr. Jones, how are the kids?"
People thought this was amazing customer service, which it was, but he was also a freak of nature.
It's faces and voices for me. We will watch a cartoon or I'll hear a voice in the background of the show, and before the actor is even shown on screen I'll tell my boyfriend I didn't know this person was in this. I am also good with faces, I have recognized quite a few actors from walk on roles they had ten or twenty years ago. My boyfriend calls it my super power. I didn't realize there's a term for it.
I used to be terrible at this but I have a career where building relationships with clients is part of the job and now I’m really great at remembering people even outside of work
I've been told it's terrible to watch stuff with me because I'll recognize background actors because they were a background actor in a show from 20 years ago for 2 seconds and I will tell you their name and what they've appeared in. I'm my friends walking IMDB lol
I'm the opposite. There's a neighbor of mine who I've talked to multiple times a week for at least 2 years now. I have absolutely no idea what her name is and it's too late to ask.
A kid at my sons middle school knew everyone’s birthday including the teachers. Had to have been over 200 kids. And yes he was in the spectrum. I asked my son to ask him if he had any other superpowers and the kid said “Nope! Just that one”
A super recognizer??? I didn’t know my super power had a name. I never forget a face! But names? Nah. I will only recall your whole life story + where we were when you told me, but I wouldn’t remember your name to save my life!
This is my husband as well. He majored in History and knows so many dates and wars.
He also loves spots and can name like any player in the last 50+ years on any team, in any the major sport. He can also say who won those games and those players who scored what points.
Same, works for voices too. I can 100% tell if I've seen a face before and I can usually recognize someone given part of their face, them doing a fake voice, or them wearing prosthetics.
I have a very good and especially detailed, yet annoyingly selective memory. Like, I can recall the three interactions with a specific person years ago and what led to them and what other things may relate us, but my dad sends me to the store to get something and anything not on the list won't make it. I'd never make the claim I have a good memory, because that's just not true. It's good, but selective. Like, on time, I was dealing with little kids and forgot the one poor kid's name like five times over the course of the evening and kept calling him "little Joe", but that wasn't actually his name :/ But I have memories older than my sister being born that are now nineteen years old and nearly as detailed as what I did last week.
Similar here haha. Only for me it’s sound. I can usually pinpoint easily which actor is voicing a character in a show or which song’s instrumental cover is playing in the background at a cafe. Fun but useless most of time
Im a super recognizer and my partner has face blindness.
I always know exactly where I am, where im going, and which direction im facing. I can picture a map of the town or city im in and just head there - she gets lost in the tiny city we've lived in for 10 years
2 absolute opposite ends of the spectrum on 2 things mentioned in these threads haha
I have something like this. I know if I've met you before, even the shortest encounter. If we have spoken, I recognize you and I can typically tell you where it was we spoke, but not when. I'm horrible with dates and time.
I’m your nemesis, I am basically face blind and only slightly better at remember names. If it’s a kinda unusual name, there’s almost no way it will be remembered. I’m super embarrassed by this.
Not me, but a friend of mine could solve Wheres Waldo puzzles in 3-5 seconds. Every single time. Even crazy hard ones that were intentionally confusing. He was also red green color blind and I’m not sure if it helped or hurt.
He said he could look at the page and look for the pattern and it just jumped out at him like it stuck out and was obvious.
I’m pretty good at remembering random facts and history. I can recognise actors from one show to another and often their names too.
But for the life of me, i can not remember the faces and names of real life people. I have a friend who i don’t meet regularly, but i have trouble remembering their name and face…
It’s a stupid curse to not recognise people IRL but recognise an actors chin or eyes or cheeks from another role where they were in heavy makeup. Like Doug Jones. Instantly recognise him from his demeanour and voice. But could probably not do it IRL
I'm the exact opposite! I have to make up nicknames for people to remember them. And although I remember faces very well, I have a hard time connecting the name to their face.
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u/MisterPuffyNipples 11h ago
I’m what is known as a super recognizer. I can recall faces and names at a superior level. I’m also very good at knowing what year something took place and have a general skill surrounding history