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Because we use clues other than facial features, we can often recognize people in circumstances in which others have difficulties. Often I have surprised people by recognizing someone from a great distance, when their face wasn't visible or clear. Of course, I was looking at their gait or body type or other distinctive features.

Because I have so much trouble distinguishing faces, I am easily confused while watching movies. I can't tell the actors apart, so the story line gets very muddled for me. As a result, I don't watch many movies. In fact, I don't even own a television set. When I do watch movies, I tend to prefer action movies or ones in which the actors are markedly different. In action movies the characters tend to be cartoonish, with exaggerated features or behavior. It's easier to tell who's who. Also, it often doesn't matter, if the focus is on explosions rather than dialog.

Once I was mugged by some kids. At the police station I was asked to look through the mug shots. It was futile. For all I could tell, it might have been the same five or six kids in different photos. I could not identify any of them, even though I had seen them all quite clearly.

I have walked right past my mother, not expecting to see her, and thus not recognizing her. I have no doubt snubbed many people unwittingly by failing to acknowledge them.

To cover myself, I have resorted to many different dodges. One of my favorites is to either take off my glasses or put them on, implying that I didn't actually see the person. It is more acceptable to be nearsighted, than to be faceblind.

I have had only one friend who actually understood and respected this condition. I knew a woman who worked with neurologically impaired people and who understood that a person might not be able to recognize others. We worked out ways for me to recognize her, when we met in crowded places. She'd wear a special color, or have with her some item such as a book I could recognize.

Most people cannot grasp that a person's vision can be fine, but he still can't recognize faces. They feel that it's a matter of effort, of blurred vision, of laziness.

It's similar to the expectation people have of a person being able to read. Barring visual impairment, one expects a person to have at least some basic reading skills, being able to read, for example, traffic signs. However, not everyone can do this.

It's not that I'm lazy or that my vision is bad. It's not that I am a stuck-up snob or painfully shy. It's that I don't recognize faces.

People who are faceblind from birth probably compensate reasonably well for their problem. We learn other ways of distinguishing people, which may not be quite as effective, but which get us by more or less.

The sudden onset of faceblindness in an adult can be devastating. They don't recognize faces any more, but they haven't had the benefit of a lifetime of learning other ways of recognizing people. They have relied on facial features, and now that this doesn't work, they have nothing to fall back on. Learning to rely on other cues can be a slow and difficult process for these people.

There are several conditions that may be associated with faceblindness. One of these is synesthesia. This is a condition in which the ordinary perceptions are experienced in unusual ways. For example, a musical note may have a particular taste, or a color may have a rough texture.

One of the most basic synesthetic experiences is seeing letters and numbers in colors. Although the colors my vary from person to person, they are often very specific, and last a lifetime.

Another possible link is dyslexia, seeing words in mirror fashion. A person with dyslexia may confuse words such as drawer and reward, since reading one backwards gives the other.

These possibilities are intriguing, but at the moment there are too few known faceblind people to make firm generalizations. We don't know enough about it at the moment.