Faceblind.

I'm astounded that I never knew this until mouse told me about it.

I know, I know, most of you have already been ranted to about this, but this is my daft little corner of cyberspace, and I can write what I want. So there.

I'm faceblind. Not seriously faceblind, to the extent of not recognising myself, but I can't 'see' faces.

Prosopagnosia is the medical term, and if it's adult onset ('acquired prosopagnosia') it tends to be caused by head trauma, stroke, or degenerative diseases. Did I hear a bingo! there, for that middle one? Thought so. It must have been the first stroke, now I think about it.

I'd never really thought about my complete inability to remember faces. To use the same example I have been using all weekend, if Matt went away for a week, I wouldn't be able to remember what he looked like. I would have to go by hair, clothes, gait, mannerisms, voice... I'm starting to realise that's not normal, as I'd assumed.
(You: Duh!)

So! I have been doing quite a bit of research on this, surprise surprise.
Let's see now...

We have the Prosopagnosia Research Centres.
This guy has a much more serious form of it.
A Times article.

Ach, if you're interested, I'm sure you can do your own research. The wiki article's quite interesting, if short (Like me! Ohohohoho!).

So, this is one of the major reasons I'm so scared of people visiting. We may talk online in various formats, we may talk on the phone, I may have seen pictures, I may have seen you on webcam. But I don't know what you look like.

So, do me a favour, ok guys? Look for the smallish girl dressed in black, wearing a tiara and holding a sign with your name on. And please, please don't be offended if I look at you unrecognisingly*.

*Not actually a word.

Plus, the dictionary.com thesaurus reference for 'unrecogni(z)/sing says :

1 entry found for unrecognizing.
Main Entry: oblivious
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: ignorant
Synonyms: absent, absent-minded, absorbed, abstracted, amnesic, blind*, blundering, careless, deaf*, disregardful, distracted, dreamy, forgetful, forgetting, gone, heedless, inattentive, incognizant, inconversant, insensible, neglectful, negligent, overlooking, preoccupied, regardless, spacey*, strung out*, unacquainted, unaware, unconcerned, unconscious, undiscerning, unfamiliar, uninformed, uninstructed, unknowing, unmindful, unnoticing, unobservant, unrecognizing, unwitting, zonked*

Blundering? Negligent? See, this doesn't help with my worries.