How observant are you.?

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!

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!

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,

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 ?

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" ?

Its not just faces, I can't remember directions to and from places. I can drive somewhere and get lost on the way home, no sat nav in my car. And if my husband has done the driving I would never find my way back again next day.
(I am the cat who walked by himself)

I have very limited sight - can only see out of one eye and need strong glasses for the other one - but I notice a lot more than most people. Maybe because I have to look quite hard to see where I am and I will always stop if I notice something like an unusual plant or even just the sunlight falling on grass. I think it makes life more interesting.

I am too observant,its quite annoying at times!

Happysexagenarian that could be me. Two houses near me are painted and the colours are not a good mix. I always notice if people have new specs, haven’t pulled the hairs from their chin and always , like you, if things are not straight. Perhaps like you say it is art training. We were taught to observe closely.

This thread makes me think my husband had a touch of face blindness. He would think Elizabeth Taylor was Ava Gardner and so on.
I too hardly notice cars, unless they are very distinctive, like a Ferrari, my DD loves cars and notices everything about them.
It’s true that drawing and painting makes one really look hard at something and shows me how we don’t really look at things in the way people did before photography, when it was commonplace for people to sketch places they visited etc.

My OH often asks who someone is if they say hello in town - it's usually a neighbour, or the woman from the library, or our window cleaner, but he just doesn't recognise them 'out of place'. I tend to have tunnel vision - and can walk straight past someone or something without noticing. Quite relieved that we still have friends...

??

My daughter and I saw a traffic collision whilst driving into town, we both gave conflicting accounts to my husband, we never knew who was right!

Joesoap
Me too. I often want to mention to family about certain habitual nuances with a grandchild but dare not in case a family member gets offended, even though I am concerned the parents have not noticed. Today's generation seem to not notice what exactly is going on with their kids, as they all lead such hectic lives.

Zoejory I am exactly the same as you. I don't notice a thing about anyone or anybody. If you asked me which of my friends wore glasses for example I couldn't tell you. I think I'm in my own world. People like us must frustrate those who go about trying to impress because it's all wasted on us. Ha ha.

I am not particularly visually observant either, but can recognise voices.
My neighbour should have been a policeman or detective. He notices everything. My family treated me to a new television recently, very similar in appearance to my other one. They are both black but the new one has a thinner frame. I wondered if he would notice and he did. I exclaimed in admiration and then he confessed that he'd seen them carrying it in.

I once met my GP socially,said I was sure we had met before, Do you work in Tesco on the tills ? She was lovely- and reminded me where we had met

In the late 70s, my parents finally bought a colour TV. I came in from school and plonked myself down to watch Jackanory. I was quite excited because a book I liked called "A Dog So Small" by Phillipa Pearce was being read by Judi Dench. Mum kept saying "what do you notice about the TV? All I could say was "I've read this! I've read this!"
My brother eventually twigged... so am I unobservant? Well, I remembered the show, the book, the author and the reader!! Perhaps this says more about my priorities!

When DH and I watch TV he'll comment did you notice he got in the car without a jacket and got with one on or that car had a number plate and now it doesn't. No, I didn't notice, I have enough trouble keeping up with the plot these days.

A few years ago I was in a queue in the post office and I thought a friend who I hadn't seen in a while was in front of me .I asked how she was keeping and about her family, was her son happy at university and was he coming home for Christmas. She answered the questions and asked about DH and how was work. Then she turned round to reach for something off a stand and we had never seen each other before.
When I told another friend she just laughed and said the person had moved about 12 months ago I had driven past the house twice a day and never noticed the for Sale sign.The odd thing though was she knew the woman I had been talking to and said she had moved into our friends house.

I was very pleased to read an article about face blindness, and for it to have a name, as mentioned on this thread, prosopagnosia. The condition has embarrassed me many times over the years, but the worst thing about this is when people think you’re ignoring them on purpose which I would never do. There are degrees of it, some can’t recognise their own children at the school gate.

Lack of sense of direction is linked to this condition which I also suffer from chronically. Mt husband couldn’t be more opposite and is amazingly observant and would get very cross with me, so I was very pleased to know it is a recognised condition and he is far more understanding that I don’t chose to be like this.

I heard a discussion about prosopagnosia on Radio 4 some time last year, Bazza. One of the interviewees was a vicar, who was chatting away to a guest after a wedding he'd conducted, and asked her whether she'd travelled far. The answer was "about as far as you". It was his own wife. She was wearing a wedding hat, and that had thrown him.

Prosopagnosia can affect people who are suffering from dementia too. My husband didn't even recognise himselfin the mirror. This condition can be very frightening for dementia sufferers. Sometimes it's necessary to cover mirrors because on seeing there reflection they think a stranger is in the room. My friend's husband was terrified of entering the en suite attached to his bedroom in the nursing home. The problem was resolved after I suggested covering the mirror which was over the hand basin.

their reflection, sorry, predictive text!

Decades ago my husband, who wore a beard for many years, decided one weekend to shave it off. He left the moustache though. The following Monday, he went to work and one of his female colleagues looked at him, confused for a moment, then had an 'Ahah!' moment. "Oh!" she said, "You've grown a moustache!"