[phaedrus]

I have hyperphantasia but also difficulty with faces. If the person changed their hair, applied their make-up differently, is standing at an angle I haven't seen them from before, etc. it won't match the hyper-specific image my memory has of them and my brain will give me a very strong "NOT THE SAME PERSON" signal.

So ironically I share your apprehension about needing to meet and recognize someone in a restaurant, but for the opposite reason!

The comparison extends to driving as well. Instead of worrying about recognizing a building or intersection, I have the opposite problem: I have often gotten lost when something changed about the street I needed to turn down. Sometimes I can't even pin down what it is but some details are wrong and I get an extreme jamais vu telling me "THIS IS NOT IT". So I drive past and get lost, turn back looking and again my brain tells me "THIS IS NOT IT".

When by elimination I realize no this really must be the correct street, the entire rest of the trip I have this Twilight Zone kind of feeling that makes me physically ill in my stomach because nothing looks "right" anymore and consciously overriding it is something akin to forcing yourself up a ladder with vertigo.