How observant are you.?

I have a friend who has face blindness - meeting up anywhere with her is a nightmare as I have to do All the looking.

One day I was driving and she was on her bike going the other way. Knowing she wouldn't recognise me, I didn't toot.
The next time I saw her she mentioned seeing me and I explained why I hadn't acknowledged her, also not wanting her to wobble off her bike.
"I didn't recognise you, but I recognised your car number plate" ?

So relieved other people have poor facial recognition, thought it was just me and it’s been very embarrassing at times.
Also my husband shaved his moustache off many years ago and it took me/children 2 days to notice AND we were on holiday so spending every minute of day together!! He even kept saying ‘give me a kiss’ and I still didn’t notice - he’s a patient man ?

Definitely not an age thing, I've walk past friends who I'd gone out to meet, as others said I'd be useless as a witness,

Many years ago when I was in my thirties I was shopping in town alone. Someone held a shop door open for me and I said “Thank you” and walked on. The door opener was my husband in full police uniform!

Like GrandTante I'm a very visually observant person, but hopeless at remembering names, dates and phone numbers.

I can recognise people I haven't seen for 40 years by their expressions and mannerisms. Possibly because I draw and paint I absorb details of what I see. Many years ago I caught a brief glimpse of a man escaping a bank robbery in the city and saw his face. I grabbed a pencil and paper and sketched what I had seen. The police later said it had been very helpful in identifying the man.

Errors in books jump out at me, continuity errors on TV; changes to friends homes and cars etc. And I'm a picture straightener. I once told an attendant at the National Gallery that a painting was not straight. He wasn't amused. When I went back a week later it had been corrected!

But being observant is not always appreciated by other people, like when I pointed out to a friend that the wall her husband had just painted didn't match the adjacent one. They had had to buy the nearest colour match they could get and hoped no-one would notice. I did. Oops!

I'm hopeless with names. Pretty good with faces and wish I could join the two up. No sirree. Used to be terrific with numeric recall but that's gone too. Have to say it helps me in the 'what to wear' scenario. Sometimes thought I couldn't wear a particular item because I wore it at our last meeting. Who remembers? Who cares? Total freedom and amen to that. People matter, not stuff. Although I freely admit some embarrassment can sometimes ensue.....

When we had our kitchen extended a number of friends who visited commented on the Aga - which had been there when we bought the house 7 years previously!

Hopeless! If I don’t see neighbours on their doorstep, I don’t recognise them. Many times I’ve only acknowledged them when out if prompted by DH. I must have a reputation for being stuck up! I do not notice if people have new cars, new doors, pets, etc. I do notice if they put weight on/lost it or if they’ve stopped colouring their hair.

The blinds drew her attention to the wondow, which, before, she had taken for granted as maybe many of the hosues she sees, have it.

Zoejory, my grandfather had a moustache. Imagine Captain Mainwaring and my grandfather looked very much like him. My grandmother complained continually about it so, like your husband, he shaved it off one morning. It took until the afternoon for Grandma to notice so Grandad’s response was that as it had taken her so long to notice he would grow it once more and would never again shave it off. And he never did!

Many years ago when out shopping with DH he briefly spoke to a man in the street and said it was his boss. The following week when out with girls from work for our Friday lunchtime drink I saw the same man in the pub and said hello. Saw this chap over the course of the next few weeks and always a bit of small talk and one time he bought me a drink. Few days later DH and I walked past the same man and I said a cheery hello only for DH to ask who he was - turned out not his boss after all! Started having Friday drinks elsewhere after that!

I'm very observant, which can be annoying as I'm always noticing continuity errors in TV programmes ? . I've learned to keep quiet on a lot of things though !

@ annsixty that was good?? An extra em ??

@ annsixty I’m fairly good on the observation scale. Life time of em emergency services employee, still working but in the training department and still love it.

Very embarrassingly I goosed a very good male friend in a pub. Except it wasn't him ☺
The poor man was dressed in similar clothes and was standing where I'd last seen said friend... that's my defense anyway

I just hope I never witness a crime. I worked in an interesting area and once walked past a burnt out car in the school carpark without noticing. Perhaps not as bad as when I unlocked the school’s back door and walked straight in early one morning without even registering that would-be thieves had spent the night chiselling out the all the bricks around the doorway in a half-baked attempt to break in.

I’m also face blind and failed to recognise my grandsons (who I see every week) on two occasions. One when he turned up in front of me totally unexpectedly in a shop in town. I was smiling at him thinking what a cute child he was. And the piece de resistance - the Reception teacher was handing over his class one by one at home time and looked my way several times when I failed to recognise DGS3, who was wearing a new coat. Only when every other child had gone did I realise what I’d done.

I was at a National Trust property when the guide in the room looked incredibly familiar. She smiled and said Hello so I confessed I couldn't place her, and she said "I've been your postie for 15 years".

I am not observant at all. I also can't remember names and faces. When we went on holidays with a group my sister's used to despair that I didn't recognise people from one day to the next and certainly not from one holiday to the next.

I was hit by a bus as a teenager and suffered a head injury. This has affected my visual memory so I need to see someone lots of times before I recognise them. Also need to be in a room many times, or travel a route very frequently before I can recall it. Sat nav was a life changer for me and gave me a lot of confidence in driving. I've no problem with auditory memory and can remember what people say easily. But still walk past people I've met a few times in the street, which hasn't helped with forming friendships. Before the accident I knew the way after travelling just once and had no problems

About 5 years ago my OH picked me up from the local train station. I went to search for him in the car park and he shouted 'where are you going?'. I'd walked straight past him as I was looking for his silver car which was a metallic mint green colour. He'd had the car for 2 years and I'd been in it numerous times. Oh well!

I complimented my newish boss on her new haircut to be told she'd just washed it

I'm very observant and quick to notice if things are different. DH notices nothing. I recently swapped round a lot of pictures in our house, moving some of them to different rooms. I didn't say anything to DH and waited to see when he noticed. After two weeks I asked if he'd noticed anything different about the walls (big clue there). No, he hadn't. I'm good at recognising faces but unfortunately nowadays my memory often fails me in recalling the name, even though I know exactly who the person is in terms of the context in which I know them, what they do, where they live... It's just the name that escapes me.

On the other hand being too observant can be a problem too and once you notice something you can't un-notice it!
One friend proudly showed me new curtains but the only thing I could see was that one of them had the pattern upside down! I was embarrassed to tell her but she did at least manage to return them for replacement, Another friend had a new bathroom installed and similarly the first thing I noticed was that 1 of the tiles was upside down!

I don’t notice what type of car people have got or their number plates. Friends will say eg. there’s Jean’s car parked there. No idea. Also don’t notice people I know when driving past them car to car. I get told a lot you didn’t wave at me the other day. Didnt notice sorry.
However, I notice the different types of birds flying about when other people think they are all the same birds. So I guess it’s what interests you. I’ve no interest in cars but I am interested in birds.

Female AHDH possibly? This is different from male ADHD and many women are getting late diagnoses now that the condition is gaining attention and coming into the public conscious. Add menopause into the mix and ... Could account for some of the inattention that so many of us are plagued with.