Now that Brad Pitt has said he has it everyone will hear of it. Everyone will know all about it. He'll explain exactly how hard it is to be a millionaire or is it billionaire with everything he could possibly ever want except that he doesn't recognize people. He'll say that people hate him because of it. Poor baby. No one will really be sorry for him. But they will hear about it.
My dad called me about a year ago because he'd just watched 60 minutes and he knew what had been wrong his entire life. He knew what his problem was. He knew I had the problem too and he told me to watch it. I did. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57399118/face-blindness-when-everyone-is-a-stranger/
He said, "This explains everything even how I am furious when your mother gets a haircut. Go take the test, I did I got 3%. Go take it." I did, I got 15%.
The thing is my dad had been visiting and I'd been working at the office and he asked me if I remembered my customers, which rooms they were in etc. To explain I own and work in a small hotel in Costa Rica, 18 rooms when we are full, I should know which people are my guests. I told him no. I told him I had no idea who was at the hotel they were all just faceless bodies. My daughter could give people their keys when they asked for them but I thought it was just my bad memory, I couldn't remember who they were.
Later after I saw the 20/20 show I realized it's not really my memory. I have faceblindness. I don't see people's faces, I don't recognize them, I don't remember them. I've had clients pay me for the room, go back to their room change, come back to my desk to give me the key and I've asked them if they've paid. They look at me as if I'm some kind of psychotic junkie... of course they've paid, they just paid me 20 minutes before, why do I not know this? If I've failed to write this down I am screwed because I can't remember them.
I have clients come back to the hotel with a huge smile, "Hi, we're back!" I can't really tell you if they stayed the week before or three years before or if I showed them the room in the morning and they finally decided to take it. I don't know if I'm supposed to remember them perfectly or at all, I just smile and nod.
People think I'm cold and distant. I've been accused of being unfriendly. I am considered terribly rude. But in reality any time someone smiles at me I smile back because I probably know them, I am probably supposed to know them, it's not their fault I don't recognize them. I dread running into people anywhere. It's worse now that I live in a small town. Everyone is supposed to know everyone. I just can't remember any of them.
I thought that I just had a terrible memory for names. But now I realize I don't remember names because I have no picture to hang the name to. I recognize people's voices, their bodies, their flaws. I look for their large hawk nose because that is something to grab onto. The people I like least are the flawless ones. The generic blonds with pretty faces, white straight teeth, better than average bodies, they are completely invisible to me. And what did I do to make this easier for myself? I moved to a country where everyone is short, brown, with brown hair and brown eyes. Distinguishing characteristics are fewer, chances of me remembering anyone - less.
A friend was visiting and I told her about this. She didn't really understand, couldn't really understand. How this could be true, how this could affect your life? We went out dancing. A woman came up to me and said hi to me by name. Lots of people know my name, I don't know any of theirs. I hate people knowing my name. She looked as if she knew me well, I went in for the friend greeting in Costa Rica (the one arm hug and cheek-kiss) and she pulled back and I knew that she didn't know me well enough to be a friend, she had not expected that. We started to talk. It was 2 minutes into the conversation "How are you, good, how are you etc" when she told me that she told me the new job she'd gone too hadn't gone the way she expected and she was looking for work again. At that point I knew who she was, she had worked for me for a month and a half before going to work for a competitor. I walked away from the exchange and my friend followed me. She turned to me and said, "You didn't know who she was!" I said, "No, that's normal, I told you that." She replied "I didn't understand, but you had no idea who she was. Who was she?" I explained. As if one can explain to someone who can see everything what it is to go through life stumbling along blind.
When another friend came to visit I explained it to her. She understood it more, she understood me more. She said, "Well that's probably related to the problems you have dating if you can't pick up on facial clues." I'm not sure that I can't see facial clues, I think I look for them all the time because I need to know if you think I know you. I told her, "I want to be anonymous, I want to be as invisible to everyone else as they are to me, then I won't have to worry."
When I was little I always said I wanted to live in either a huge city or in the middle of the wilderness because those were the only two places you could be alone. Perhaps I knew then that I didn't want to be alone, I just didn't want to be so socially inadequate.
