I Didn’t Recognize You With Your Clothes On

Regular clothes that is

Woman in Work Uniform

Uniforms. You see them everywhere. Nurses and other hospital personnel wear scrubs. Some have different colors for the different departments. Wal-Mart has those blue smocks with the logo on the back. Target has their tell-tell red shirt and khaki pants. You know what fast food place someone works at because it has the name embroidered on the shirt. Uniforms are a major part of society. Even a lot of schools have them.

Along with most uniforms comes a name badge. Some are small and discreet while others, like the one I had at Bi-Lo, take up the upper left quadrant of your torso. I’m a name-badge kind of person. Even when I’ve worked with you a while, I still can’t place a name with a face. I know who you are, mostly, but without the name badge, I have to work extra hard to remember your name. If I see you outside of the workplace, chances are I’m not sure if it’s you. There are exceptions, like people I’ve worked closely with for years or people I’ve associated with outside of work.

Face Blindness

Recently, and I do mean recently, I was introduced to something called acroposia…no, that’s not it. Apostophesia…hold on, I’ll get it. Pickleprognosis…definitely not it. Prosopagnosia. That’s it. Prosopagnosia is the medical term for Face Blindness.

I thought it was an interesting topic and it’s held my attention. Which is impressive because I’m easily distracted as you well know. In my reading of Sadie Dingfelder’s work, I had the opportunity to test myself. Turns out I don’t have prosopagnosia. Well, I scored 72% on the test anyway. Suffice it to say, my problem with recognizing people stems from something else. It’s also an issue of whose name that face belongs to.

Actors, actresses, and others who are on video have familiar faces. Some of which I know and others I don’t. Take Christian Bale (easy ladies) for example. When I first saw him I mistook him for Tom Cruise and had trouble reconciling the age difference. I did the same with Channing Tatum for Brendan Fraser. They looked like slightly younger versions but they were of no relation. Then there’s the guy in Contact with Jodie Foster. The white-haired fanatic. I thought he looked like Gary Busey but younger and with a narrower face. I was right on that one. It’s his son.

When we recognize someone, it’s not always the same thing that gives it away. Except the Busey’s. It’s the teeth. If someone is normally clean-shaven and they grow a beard, some people won’t recognize them. Same with hairstyles, piercings, and even the clothes they wear. Some recognize the voice, not the face. Others might recognize the smell or the way they walk. Most people use multiple ways of picking someone out of a group of people. Some of us have trouble bringing all the necessary information to the front of our brains (metaphorically speaking) and it may take a while for the bell to ring. 

Margaret, put your shirt back on

“I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on,” she said. Suddenly realizing what came out of her mouth, her face flushed with embarrassment. “In street clothes, not in your work clothes.” She glanced at the others who had been paying attention. “That’s what I meant.”

Such an embarrassing Freudian slip. But haven’t we all done that? Seeing someone in a suit when we normally only see them in jeans and a T-shirt?

“Who’s that guy?” she whispered to her friend. “He’s hot.”

“Seriously?” her friend asked as she rolled her eyes. “That’s Micheal.”

“Oh god,” she covered her mouth and ran for the bathroom.

I guess she was too far away to see my face. Though it is true. Some people look a lot different depending on the clothes they’re wearing. We get accustomed to identifying people in certain ways and it’s difficult to let that go. We do the same for personalities, education, job titles, and social status. Some are more open to accepting changes than others, but even then it takes us a little bit to adjust our minds.

Judging book covers

You know the old saying so I don’t need to say it again. Put an old, tattered, and torn book into a new cover and binding and suddenly it has more value to you. Take the throwaway copy of “Oliver Twist” and wrap it in the original style casing and you’ve got something worth a lot of money. Take the top-selling self-help book, Think and Grow Rich, toss it around a school playground for a week, and see if anyone picks it up.

We draw conclusions based on outward appearances. Why? Because that’s the first thing we recognize. For those with Prosopagnosia, other methods of recognition are needed. Each person deals with it in their own way. 

If you want to know more about it, pre-order Sadie Dingfelder’s upcoming book “Do I Know You?: A Faceblind Reporter's Journey into the Science of Sight, Memory, and Imagination”

In her book, you’ll discover what it means to be Faceblind, a bit of history about it, and a lot more. This is all new to me, so I’ll let the experts explain it.