Face Blindness

I’Mnot rude. I’m not distracted. I just have no idea who you are. I might recognize you if we meet at our weekly shiur, but if we meet at the doctor’s office, unexpectedly? No way.

I beat myself up for years, thinking that I just didn’t care enough about other people to remember what they looked like. Then I discovered it’s a brain thing called prosopagnosia, or face blindness, and that one in 50 people lives with it. Some people have such bad cases they can’t recognize themselves. (I’m lucky — one of my front teeth is discolored, so when I smile at the mirror, I can tell it’s me!) When most people meet a stranger, they take a mental snapshot of the face and file it in their memories, but I throw the snapshot out immediately. I don’t want to, but my brain does it anyhow.

So I have all sorts of tricks to work out who other people are. After five minutes of staring at my husband’s brother, it dawned on me that I could tell them apart by their coloring. And I love it that kallahs wear lacy white dresses. Once I find the young woman in the lacy white dress, I know that the lady fussing over her must be my friend who invited me to her daughter’s wedding. I might have recognized my friend, sort of, if she’d been standing by her mailbox, but now that she’s wearing an elegant sheitel and makeup, I don’t have a hope.

I memorize what she’s wearing — I’m good at that! — so I can smile brightly at her later and know which circle to dance in.