So yesterday I was waiting for the tram (in Sydney). I was trying to work out how to buy a ticket, reading the details from an information board and explaining to my wife as I read.

Then my wife waved to me from some distance away, and I realised that I was talking to some random woman.

Not the first time this sort of thing has happened to me, and I do get a variety of reactions from people.

My family and I had a good laugh about it several times throughout the day.

Hahahahaha  =) im sorry but this is really funny =)
Wonder if your wife would forgive you if you have sex with the wrong woman... (perhaps inappropriate, sorry)

In high school i spent over a year or two thinking two people were the same person, they were both short with similar hair, i caught onto their large changes in attitude (one was nice and the other was kind of a ***), i never learned their names properly.
I had no idea it could be so severe, i have problems differentiating between people (not face blindness, i think)- especially when they are in the distance, but this is a whole new level. Sounds difficult and challenging =)

Does this sort of thing happen often ? Do u have any more amusing stories ? Why did noone respond ?

This post was last modified: 08-11-2012 06:48 PM by NikenNak.

Happens to me ALL the time, which led to a lot of awkward and painful situations in my past. When I was younger and bullied a lot at school, the teachers and principals would grill me for details and I couldn't name anyone responsible because of my difficulty remembering names and faces. So they invariably concluded that I was making the whole thing up.

That is hilarious!  I'm glad your wife has a good sense of humor about it

I try to look for a specific trait in someone, like a hairstyle, build, or a mole.  I get in trouble when people get a new hairstyle or lose/gain weight.  

I recently watched a video of my son in a play.  I wasn't able to attend because i was sick.  A boy came out with his build and haircut, and I thought it was him.  Nope, it was some other kid!

I don't think someone is somebody I know unless they are almost complete lookalikes, but I have to see someone 5 or 6 times before I recognize them.

We used to go to a bowling alley in Jakarta a couple of times a week. There was one girl there who was sometimes really friendly, sometimes not. Sometimes wore makeup, sometimes not. Then one day they were on the same shift together and I realised they were different people. And they weren't sisters, weren't from the same part of the country. And even then I could only tell them apart because one wore makeup.

This sort of thing really messes with my mind... I switched schools a lot back then and I could had sworn that somebody at my new schools would always look like somebody I've met before.... Like when I had this friend named Melissa (whom I learned later years had died) who looked liked another girl I knew...

I could never understand for a long time how people seemed to automatically know who they were talking to.  I used to think, as a child, that they had some sort of secret masonic hand sign or something and nobody had bothered to tell me!  I've learned to cope with it nowadays.  For instance one of my teachers met me in the ladies bathroom the other day and was all friendly, called me by name and everything and I had NO IDEA who she was!  But I responded with a big smile and was friendly back (instant NT mimicry, LOL) and just said, as an explanation to why I'd not instantly said hello when I saw her "I'm sorry, I was miles away!" That usually works pretty well.  Or if I'm outside, "Oh, sorry, didn't spot you, the sun was in my eyes."  Such excuses work pretty well, except for the time I was in Woolworths, Vernu had gone into a different aisle and I spotted him in the vegetable department, so I went up and started talking to him where we'd left off our conversation.  Then he came up behind me and I saw the guy I'd been talking to staring at me.  He was also tall, black, and wearing similar clothes to Vernu.  But I felt a bit silly, he probably thought I was trying to chat him up!
Alison

I remember that same incident happening with two girls that I knew through out Junior High and High School. I thought one was the other, yet realized I was talking to two different girls. Girl A was a singer, and Girl B doesn't do much singing.

I've had the opposite happen once.  I lost my girlfriend in a museum because she took off her hat!

We'd gotten split up and were searching for one another.  I was looking for a tall blonde girl with a black beret.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find her.  According to my girlfriend, at one point I was about five feet away from her, and staring right at her - and then I kept looking and walked away.  She thought I was angry at her.

I used to think I was really really good with faces - I could notice that two people looked alike, even though others never agreed.  Then I realised it was just because I was really really bad with faces.

Whoops.

Actually, i figured this might be as good a place as any to ask this, and i do not intent to be racist or offensive!
I have a much harder time telling the difference between dark (black) faces than with lighter ones i think. Is this anything u guys can relate to or know about ?

I suspect that it has more to do with what you are accustomed to seeing.

I had a Korean friend in college who was adopted by caucasian parents, and she couldn't tell Asian people apart.  It was so embarrassing for her that she avoided making Asian friends.  She was pretty NT as far as I could tell.

We were out site seeing with a group of friends.  I ended up holding hands with another man instead of my husband.  He was around the same height.  

I try and remember what colour shirt my husband is wearing when we go out.  I almost put my arm around another man and my hand in his back pocket once.  That would have been very very bad.  

Other times I will be talking to someone and I have no idea who they are or how I know them.  I just know that they know me.

I had suspected something like that, i have heard of this before, it just seems like people will assume you are being racist if you mention it.
***

A Free Online Face Blindness Test !! Uses celebrity faces and you can remark whether or not you know the person after assuming the identity.
http://www.faceblind.org/facetests/ff/ff_intro.php

I got quite a poor score, i could only recognize 50% of the people that i knew. I would google each of them afterwards and if i could recognise them in other pictures i would say whether or not i was right or wrong, otherwise if i didnt know how they looked i said i didnt know them.
Tell us what u get =)

This post was last modified: 08-13-2012 04:33 PM by NikenNak.

I got my prosopagnosia diagnosis from the group that runs that web site.  For the record, the famous faces test is not considered to be all that accurate and they don't use it as part of their evaluation process.  There's another one on the site called the Cambridge Face Memory Test, which is one of the major components of the evaluation and is generally considered to be a better test.