Prosopagnosia. I had never heard of it before yesterday.
To have two of the seven people at the table realize—out loud—that they had it felt like another coincidence-adjacent moment. But maybe it wasn’t that odd. Those two cousins share something: grandparents. The same ones I have.
Whatever the mechanism, I clearly don’t have face blindness. As I wrote, I have the opposite problem. I remember too much about faces. Even if the context doesn’t snap in immediately, I can usually just sit with the face for a bit. Given time, the background forms. The setting emerges from the mist.
Names, however, are a different story. I almost never remember names.
And I know why.
When I shake someone’s hand, I’m focused entirely on their face—reading it, registering it, looking for clues about how best to interact with this person. The name simply doesn’t make the cut. It never gets encoded.
So there it is. Two different failures. Two different strengths.
Prosopagnosia. I had never heard of it before yesterday.
To have two of the seven people at the table realize—out loud—that they had it felt like another coincidence-adjacent moment. But maybe it wasn’t that odd. Those two cousins share something: grandparents. The same ones I have.
Whatever the mechanism, I clearly don’t have face blindness. As I wrote, I have the opposite problem. I remember too much about faces. Even if the context doesn’t snap in immediately, I can usually just sit with the face for a bit. Given time, the background forms. The setting emerges from the mist.
Names, however, are a different story. I almost never remember names.
And I know why.
When I shake someone’s hand, I’m focused entirely on their face—reading it, registering it, looking for clues about how best to interact with this person. The name simply doesn’t make the cut. It never gets encoded.
So there it is. Two different failures. Two different strengths.
Yin and yang, perhaps.
Your jaw procedures are incredible. And cringy. Glad you are doing well.