On being blind

An epiphany yesterday! I read about a newly diagnosable 'disease' the medical community has come up with: face blindness. (It has a long name that begins with a 'p' but I'm better at the layman's terminology.

It's not that I never remember faces -- there are actually quite a number of people whom I recognize by sight, but it seems I require excessive exposure to someone before I can do so. And if I don't see someone in a while, I can 'lose' who they are. Example: We spent two years meeting once or twice a month with a group of about 3-4 other couples. Several months after our last meeting, we ran into one of the men in a store. I stood with my husband and talked to him for 10 minutes. (Fortunately, my husband did most of the talking!)

Just as we wound up the conversation, he said something which made me realize that I'd mistaken him for a totally different acquaintance, with somewhat of a similar hairstyle. The man I thought he was is the husband of a good friend... We've had them over for dinner, I've been in their house, we've done a number of social activities in a group with them... If it was only once, I might not think anything of it, but this sort of thing happens often to me. I was beginning to think I had some sort of mental disability. I guess I do, but now it has a name, prosopagnosia. (I went and looked it up.)

Another impact it makes: When I'm in a restaurant, and I want to summon our server for something, I find it very difficult, because I never know which of the waiter/waitresses running around is ours.

But, it's really encouraging to know I'm not the only one. The newspaper I read about it in says that 1 in 50 people have it.