A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PROSOPAGNOSIA AND RUDENESS.

I remember my teacher telling us a story about a man called Bob, who saw his friend John, who was expensively dressed in a Hugo Boss suit and a Tommy Hilfiger shirt, and he greeted him. He invited John around for tea the following weekend. John arrived on the Saturday night wearing a Big W sports shirt and Big W jeans, carrying a bottle of wine. Bob closed the door in John’s face. Unfazed, John walked away. About a year later, Bob saw John wearing his Big W shirt and jeans and invited him around for dinner the following weekend. John agreed, and arrived in his Hugo Boss Suit and Tommy Hilfiger shirt, and instead of sitting at the table, John removed his jacket and took some chicken on skewers and laid them on the jacket. He then picked up a few appetizers and threw them on the jacket. Then he removed his Tommy Hilfiger shirt and took some ladles of bolognaise sauce and poured them on the shirt. Then, he removed his trousers and smeared the dessert on them, and said to Bob, “The food I have laid out here is their food, not mine.” Bob looked at John in amazement. Bob had invited an image of John to dinner, not John himself.

Now compare this. Every fortnight, an autistic person with prosopagnosia goes to the pharmacy to get some scripts made up for other conditions (say an antidepressant and an anti-inflammatory and a beta blocker) and they see their pharmacist. One Saturday afternoon, however, their pharmacist is at the local shopping complex wearing an old mowing hat, an old mowing shirt and shorts, and their pharmacist sees them walking to their car and says hello, and the autistic person struggles to recognize them. The autistic person is NOT being a snob, but they don’t recognize their pharmacist out of context.

I remember my father used to say that with the barber he had for 10 years that if you saw him in public, he didn’t recognize you, but once you walked into his shop, he did. That didn’t mean that the barber only knew you when you were in his shop to spend money, but it was out of context. I also remember a rude staff member at my former local supermarket who, if she was working there would go through the motions of serving you, but if she was wearing the uniform, but shopping, wouldn’t, and was even rude to other staff members. What I would say to someone in that context is, in a small town, people know the local supermarket person, and will say hello, so if you don’t want that, go home and change and shop elsewhere.

So be mindful of that and don’t automatically assume that someone is being rude because they don’t recognize you out of usual context.