When there is no face to put to a name

Navigating a social event while blind is tricky for reasons you probably never imagined.

As we approach the venue for a parents-with-children workshop, blossoms drip from the trees and land softly on my hands--so close I can make out their delicate pink color. My kids and I pause to breathe in the dizzying scent. The sun glitters through the branches, refracting sparks in my distorted vision. Birds twitter on every side. It’s an achingly beautiful May morning.

Creative Commons image by Mary of Flickr.com

“Oh, hi Arie!” A voice cuts across the bliss and I turn, constructing a delighted and eager smile. 

I have to correct for height in a split second. The woman is short and standing one curb down. I focus as hard as I can on the upper half of the pale, fuzzy oval that should be her face, judging by the sound of her voice. Somewhere in there are her eyes and like a foreigner in a land with strange but strict greeting customs, I have to struggle to simulate the correct visual communications etiquette. 

I’m pretending to make eye contact. But this woman doesn’t realize it. Unlike me, she isn’t thinking about eye contact. She’s simply getting the impression that I’m friendly… or not, depending on how successful my pantomime of eye contact is. 

I beam at her, projecting warmth—even though I don’t have the slightest clue who the woman is. I only know she is one of the people from the foster-and-adoptive-families support group and they are all wonderful people who I enjoy. She might be one of several who consider me to be a friend, who I’ve had intimate and intense conversations about parenting and society with and whose name I would instantly recognize, if it were offered. Or she might be one of several dozen parents in the group who know my name and expect me to know theirs, even though we aren’t all close. 

Creative Commons image by Carolinqua of Flickr.com

Recognizing people and connecting names to them is one of the most difficult things for visually impaired and blind people to do. When dealing with a large group of people who only see one another every few weeks or months it's downright impossible. Everyone knows everyone else and assumes you should, but you don’t hear the voices often enough to get a solid read on them.

In this case, it has been at least a year since I have seen the other support-group participants and their children. I can hear the footsteps and the breathing of a child beside this woman and I detect the fuzzy shape. I direct a smile and fake eye contact to where I guess the child’s eyes should be.

I do care. I know that eye contact is very important to people who can see well. It is hardwired into their brains and a child might be frightened of someone who didn't do it. Aside from that it's like good manners. If I came to a foreign country, I would make a valiant attempt to learn their words for "please" and "thank you." So, I try to fake eye contact for the benefit of sighted people. It isn't fake caring. It's just something I'm doing for them, rather than doing it automatically.

Still, I yearn for clues as to who this woman and child are. I get the feeling from the woman's tone that she probably isn’t one of those I’m closest with. I decide to take the plunge. My stomach twists with anxiety, but it must be done.

“It’s so good to see all of you again, but you know I have trouble recognizing people.” I raise my white cane and give it a gentle nod. Sometimes this doesn’t work. People often don’t take the hint and I don’t want to be rude. Sometimes they are even offended when they realize I’m asking for their name.

Creative Commons image by Shannon Kringen

Many of my acquaintances have scoffed in reply, “You have better hearing than other people. If you cared, you’d remember people’s names after three times.” Once a woman at our local community center told me directly that I wasn't welcome there because I didn't greet people I had already met on previous occasions with enough recognition. She said this while I was holding my white cane. 

That’s the reason for my sweaty palms and queasy stomach. Will this be another one of those blistering responses that make me feel like a dismal, anti-social failure? Or will she just ignore me, like most do, and let me continue to wander in anonymous confusion? I hold my breath.

“Of course, I’m sorry. I’m Zora,” she says. “We were in mommy-and-me swimming class with you about four years ago.” 

“Oh, yes, I remember, but haven’t you dyed your hair?” I say, automatically trying to make her feel comfortable and recognized. 

I am mostly guessing again, just like with the eye contact. I don’t remember her hair. When and if people were introduced at mommy-and-me swimming class it was in a huge echoing swimming hall. I rarely got the other women's names even once and if I did I had no image to go along with the name. But I do remember others calling out to Zora, so she was there and I can claim to remember it. 

The part about her hair popped out before I could think better of it. I'm grasping at straws and I can just make out the color of her hair. It's the type of dark blond that often results from dye. It’s a good bet and it works. She is pleased and believes that I truly remember her. 

“Yes, I love to dye my hair all the time. Matilda was smaller then, of course, but your kids too.” 

Okay, Zora and Matilda. I’ve got that now… until they take their jackets off and are dressed in different colors at least.

The problem is that I probably do remember Zora much better than this in another way. I probably had a wonderful conversation or two with her and felt a genuine connection to her. There have been many such conversations when I wished I knew who the delightful person I was speaking with was. But if so, I didn’t know her name was Zora when I had those conversations.

While she was nice enough to tell me now, almost no one does it consistently. I have no face to connect those conversations with either, so it is likely that I’ll never be able to truly reconnect. Each time I meet a person without a name it might as well be our first meeting. 

Still I’m grateful beyond words to this woman who took the hint well, was not offended that I couldn’t recognize her and provided her name this once. I want to plead with her and beg her to tell me her name on future occasions too. I want to assure her that I care and I want to be friendly. I am not aloof as many people often say of me. Far from it! I desperately want to know it is Zora the next time I have a great conversation with her around the break-time coffee table at a workshop. But if she doesn’t tell me again--even later today--it’s unlikely I will know it's her.

We enter the building and split up to circulate around the room. I’m boggled again. I didn’t manage to watch Zora and Matilda take their jackets off because I was dealing with my kids, so I can no longer recognize them. Still I repeat to myself silently, “Zora, dyed blond, brown jacket. Matilda, a bit taller than my daughter, blue jacket,” over and over, hoping to remember these little factoids in the barrage of similar small facts that I try to use to connect names to people.

Creative Commons image by Taston of Flickr.com

Here’s the thing. The human brain is hardwired to memorize human faces. Even though a face is more complex than the color of a jacket, it is much easier for most people to remember what Zora’s face looks like than that she has a brown jacket. Most people’s brains do it automatically and even when people do struggle to memorize names, they are memorizing the name, NOT the face. The face is quickly encoded in the brain as the fixed point to attach the name to. 

I have no such fixed point. I have only the two facts to memorize like vocabulary words in a foreign language, “Zora = brown jacket.” Two facts that will probably never be useful again because Zora will wear a different jacket next time and several other women here will have brown jackets too, but I’ll try because it’s all I’ve got. I can’t see any detail beyond the smudge of color.

I am relieved to find that I do recognize the voices of the three organizers who are at every one of these workshops. It has taken several workshops for me to know their voices instantly, but I’ve got them down now. Voices can be used like faces to identify people, but the imprint of it on the memory isn’t as quick, even with all my practice. It takes several exposures, and most importantly, it only helps if I actually know the name attached to the person when they speak. If I know who is speaking and hear them maybe four times, I will probably recognize their voice.

But four times of knowing their name! That isn’t likely to happen, unless the person is a workshop presenter who people call by name repeatedly. 

This is probably the single largest problem I encounter from blindness—not tripping on things, not losing my keys, not even the inability to drive. No, the worst is not being able to recognize people and all the consequences that go along with that. Many people will ask me solicitously over and over again if they can take my hand to help me walk down a slightly bumpy trail in a park, even though I show no signs of difficulty, but they almost never offer their name each time they approach me. Most don’t even take the hint and let me know their name without a fuss when I make the terrifying effort to ask.

Zora is above the curve. 

There has been only one person I’ve met in the past ten years who consistently told me her name every time I met her until I actually had to ask her to stop because I knew her voice so well I could have picked her out of a crowd on the street. This woman came to a meeting for foster and adoptive parents that I attended years ago and immediately after meeting me and seeing my cane, she went to the coffee table and then returned to the conversation. 

“It’s Blanka again,” she told me as she rejoined the circle where I was discussing something with others. A few of the others stopped speaking and seemed to be confused by her comment. My jaw dropped from the sheer newness of it, but I quickly caught myself and gave her a smile.

Creative Commons image by Shannon Kringe

Later she came over to where I was playing with my toddler to ask me where we lived because she had heard her home was close to mine. Again, she started the conversation by announcing, “Hi Arie, it’s Blanka.”

I thanked her briefly that time. 

Then at another meeting three months later, I saw her again… or heard her. I came to the door and was unloading my children from the stroller when I heard a voice raised from the far side of the crowded room, “Hi Arie, it’s Blanka!” 

I had to fight back tears. 

I told her later how much it meant to me and she seemed surprised. “Well, of course you can’t recognize people’s faces,” she said and moved on to another topic. 

I have now known Blanka for over five years and she no longer has to announce herself because I told her that I can recognize her voice now. We aren’t close friends because life hasn’t taken us that way and she's a busy foster parent, but I’m always overjoyed to meet her at support groups. I remember the things she has said, her interests and her parenting struggles. I truly know who she is and recognize her.. Many other people have attended the same groups with us for the same amount of time, and I cannot connect their names to their voices, stories, interests and identities. At this point, they would be utterly confused and offended if I admitted that I still don’t know their names after even five years of acquaintance in the group. 

Don’t get me wrong. I know them--the people. In some cases I can even recognize their voices. But I recognize them with labels like “the woman with three little boys all close to the same age” or “the woman with reddish frizzy hair” or “the man with the loud voice and bald head.” I have relationships with these identities because I don’t have their names and I have mostly stopped trying to hint and get them to tell me. The reactions are often too offended. 

I am curious about how others view this topic. Do most sighted people realize that visually impaired people can’t recognize faces and that voices are not that easy to recognize? Is there a way that I could ask more effectively for people to let me know their name? Don't be afraid to comment or to discuss your own difficulties. My page is always free of ridicule and judgement.

And even more urgently I wonder if other visually impaired people have any tips or ideas for how to improve my skill in recognizing people? Do most blind people learn to recognize voices after being introduced to a person only once or twice? How do other visually impaired people keep track of who is who in a crowd? Please feel free to comment below.