[majiy]

Literally my thoughts. That would be so helpful, but I will not give any data-hungy company access to people around me.

I recently heard the best way to explain faceblindness: Apples.

Can you tell apples apart? Yes, sure, if you put two apples next to each other, they look similar, but there are differences.

But could you recognize that specific apple among 50 similar ones?

If an apple addressed you on the street, could you remember where you've seen it before?

That is how it feels to be faceblind.

There are workarounds, but they are context-dependent and error-prone.

That apple with red hair and a beard? Sure, that's the colleague from the office next door. But was that the same apple that waved to you in the city yesterday?

The only green apple among red ones? Easy to recognize. But only after some awkward misunderstandings you realize that there are two of them.

And changes of hairstyle are a real problem. I once wondered who that new colleague was during lunchbreak. I was about to ask her, when she said something (unrelated) and I recognized her voice. I had worked with her for 10 years, she had colored her hair.

[malfist]

Thats exactly how I describe it. I recognize most people by their hair and voice, but its error prone. My other half, who I've been with for a decade and a half, put on a wig the other day and walked by me at a bar and the only thing I thought about was "that guy was good looking". He got a good laugh out of that.

[eterm]

I'm saving this comment, thank you for a great explanation of what it is like.

I was in my late 20s when I realised I was "face-blind", but I should have realised a lot earlier, I remember reading in a book as a child about how "people can recognise a person by their face from a long distance, but find it difficult to recognise a voice", and I could not relate whatsoever to that passage.

I thought I regularly struggle to recognise someone until they start speaking, but it wasn't until a decade or two later that I read about prosopagnosia and then suddenly a lot of things made sense.

Your explanation is so much better than the rubbish illustrations of blanked or blurred faces, because it isn't like that at all, indeed sometimes I might rely on a detail about their face to recognise someone.

It's why face-blind isn't a great term either, because it's not a kind of blindness, I can see just as well as anyone, it just doesn't trip the automatic and instinctual recognition that I understand most people have.

[riffraff]

Thank you so much for sharing this, I had no idea this condition existed and you provided a perfect explanation.