Do I Know You?

I'm really bad at recognizing people. You know how most people say, "I'm awful with names, but I know your face"? I'm good with names. If I can see it written down, or hear it and picture how it's spelled in my head, I'll probably remember it. But I seem to have trouble recognizing faces. I think I read too much as a kid, and it permanently warped how I learn things.

I find myself looking at someone across a restaurant, or at a park, wondering, "Is that who I think it is?" Sometimes the person I suspect it is is someone I know very well, so I should recognize them straight off. Yet I hesitate. There are bad consequences to guessing wrong on either side.

One time I smiled and then turned away from a colleague who had greeted me in a store. I thought it was a stranger just making a friendly comment - noticed the resemblance to my colleague, of course, but thought it couldn't actually be him. The next day at work, he asked me about it and I realized with a thunk of dread how rude it must have seemed.

Another time I saw a girl washing her hands in a campus bathroom and thought it was an acquaintance. I greeted her happily and asked how she was, and said I hadn't seen her around much lately. She smiled back at first and said, "Fine thanks!" but then her brow furrowed and she stopped making eye contact with me in the mirror, and I realized, staring at her, that she wasn't someone I knew at all. "Who is this freak acting like my friend?" she must have thought.

If only everyone walked around with big blocks of identifying text pinned to their clothing, then I would have no trouble.