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What was this? - Didn’t spot own step daughter!

leehart

leehart

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
Hi, I am not sure if this is an autistic thing or if I am just clueless! Today there was a coffee morning, I was to go first and speak to a few folks then take my wife down later once step daughter had arrived. We were running late which had me agitated as I wouldn’t have long down there, I went down, saw a few folks and chatted with them. I then walked down to speak to a few others and someone heckled me (in good nature quite sure she is also ND so we banter well) I stopped to chat and it took me about 30 seconds, and the person pointing out my step daughter was sitting beside her! I hadn’t seen her! Not when I went in and even when I was literally standing at the table! I said to my wife and she mentioned something about not expecting to see people out of context….not sure if people have experienced that and how to manage it? For my worry is if the person had not said my step daughter was there would I have clicked or headed off to do what I had planned before the heckler interrupted my plan. I know before I could be in the shopping centre and walk by family and friends, I wouldn’t spot them and I would laugh it off when they spoke later about it.
 
It is about doing your all to concentrate on what you are doing and then can easy miss the vital targets, so to speak.

I am like this with my husband and people laugh. He doesn't though and finds it a great insult, which, yes, I can see why he would. But, it is never intentional.

Just yesterday, a son and dad popped over to our place to pick up our generator and I had been in bed, not at all well and was getting a little better, but had to go to the toilet. It took a lot of courage to go downstairs, knowing there it was not just my husband there. I spoke to the dad because I find him very easy to talk too and my husband actually, put his hand casually on the son's shoulders and said: hey, you are ignoring Ashley! I felt so embarrassed, because it was not intentional at all and his son is highly shy ( appears so anyway). I did say hi and we had a hug ( French way - not French lol)

It can so easily be done in the type of invironment you talk about. I am absolutely hopeless in a bussling place.
 
Autism-related prosopagnosia, perhaps? I've done the same exact thing when I'm not expecting someone to show up in a particular place (even family). Usually someone else has to say, "Hey, that's your dad over there" or something in order for it to even register.
 
My wife is a natural blonde, she has taken a shower comes down with purple hair. I do not notice. She laughs her head off .
 
Thanks folks, its helpful to hear this isn’t unique, thankfully it’s been laughed off but it’s a little unsettling cause if I’m not aware…how many other times might I do this and be completely unaware. I’ll look more into prosopagnosia which I had kinda written off thinking it wasn’t something I had issues with!
 
Yeah, I had a few of such experiences over the years myself.

At first they were bewildering. Later they were startling. Why could I not recognize them immediately?

I have no answers. But it does remind me of that saying, "out of sight, out of mind". And unlike a dog, my sense of smell wouldn't have been of any help in such a situation. My bad.
 
It can happen even to NTs. I remember when me and my family were on vacation in another part of the UK, and my aunt's mother-in-law lived there (about 500 miles away from where we lived, but we had met her a couple of times when she came down to our county). We knew where she worked, and she didn't know we were there on vacation, so we went into the store where she worked. But when we found her and said hello, she looked at us with a very confused look on her face, as if to say "who on earth are you?" It suddenly went a little awkward, so we told her who we were, and after a few moments she suddenly realised and was pleased to see us, and she apologised for not recognising us, although it didn't offend us. I wasn't expecting her to need to be told who we were before recognising us, but I also understood that it's easy to not recognise people when they show up unexpectedly and out of context.
 
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