David Frost: I suffer from face blindness. As a politician, being unable to identify people is agony

Yahoo

02-12-2024

It was 2018. A European foreign minister was visiting Boris Johnson in the Foreign Office. As Boris's adviser, I was dispatched to talk to him and his team, including his London ambassador, in the waiting room for a few minutes and then return to update Boris. When he and his team were brought along to Boris's office, I introduced myself by name to the ambassador once again. He looked at me rather oddly, and said 'Yes, I know.' What he didn't realise was that he was entirely unfamiliar to me again: I hadn't forgotten the conversation, but had no idea which of the visiting group I'd had it with.
Something like this has been my experience, in a variety of contexts, all my life. That condition, the inability to remember faces, is called prosopagnosia, or more simply face blindness. Last week, Bournemouth University released a new report on it, showing it is a distinct condition, one from which many people may not realise they suffer, and maybe more widespread than has been thought.
My family first realised something was wrong when, aged seven, I walked past my mother at the school gates because she was wearing a new coat: the colour of the coat was the cue, not her face (it's improved since then). Later, at school, there was a boy in my year whom some people called by his first name, some his surname – it was that sort of school. For most of my time there I believed these were two different people.
I've learnt that most people find this kind of thing extraordinary, very hard to believe or understand. But for me it's just the way things are, somewhat complicating, but not disruptive to everyday life.
What is it like to suffer from face blindness? Well, first, it's nothing to do with actual blindness: I can see faces and features perfectly well. Tests show I have it in a milder form than many. I don't have that disabling complete inability to recognise faces that some unfortunate sufferers do. I do remember them if they are familiar and repeatedly reinforced: relatives, people I work with closely, and, mostly, famous people.
But faces are somehow hard to analyse. I can't remember faces day to day – I would be an absolutely terrible police witness – and I simply cannot reconstruct a face in my mind, even that of a close family member. I find it hard to see similarities and differences between faces and features, and therefore to have a reliable sense of who looks like someone else. So it can be hard to be sure whether I have seen someone before, even just a few minutes before, and I easily confuse people.
Obviously this creates difficulties in social interaction. And I have chosen careers which have a lot of it. As a diplomat, ambassador and politician, I have found the condition particularly painful given the amount of time each role has required me to spend on meeting, greeting, and trying to build rapport. So I have had to find ways to manage.
One technique is to identify people by what they are wearing: the colour of the jacket, earrings, a watch. That's all very well if people are wearing something distinctive, but it's a disaster if everyone is in uniform. Obviously, it also doesn't work if someone changes their clothing. It's pretty awkward when I welcome someone to a reception, they go inside and take their coat off, and then find me introducing myself to them again.
It's not just in real life either. I will struggle with films where there is a lot of rapid switching between scenes, or flashbacks, with the same characters in different outfits. Subtitles can help, but my family still become weary of me asking, 'Is this character the same one as in the last scene'?
Another technique is to try to recognise people by something other than their face: a distinguishing mark, hair colour, or very often posture or gait. Sometimes this is subliminal and I have come to realise I am picking up on cues that others can safely ignore. Very often I will say to my wife 'Mr X looks like Mr Y', only to be told: 'No he doesn't!' to which I might reply, 'Yes, but the way he walks does!'
All this means that context is very important. I'm much more likely to 'place' someone accurately if they are in their normal environment. If I see you, a casual work colleague, outside work, in casual clothes, I'm going to find it difficult to remember you unless I know you very well. I apologise to The Telegraph writer who greeted me in the street the other day and eventually had to introduce himself, realising I had no idea who he was. As the saying goes: 'It's not you, it's me.' So, if you accost me on my day off, expect a meandering conversation where I try desperately to extract some bit of personal information which will suddenly enable me to put two and two together.
Those of us with a degree of face blindness are very conscious of how all this can look to others. It's very easy to come across as rude or indifferent. After all, no one wants to think that someone has taken so little interest in a conversation with them that they have forgotten it 10 minutes later. And it changes our own behaviour too. It makes me reluctant to use names and cautious about introducing people to each other, in case I have misunderstood who they are. In groups, I stand back till I'm sure I know who everyone is. This can, of course, easily look like stand-offishness or indifference.
I'm writing this to explain, not to complain. Some people say that face blindness should be considered a recognised disability or that sufferers should be a protected group under the Equality Act. I have never thought of it like that and I certainly wouldn't claim any special status. I don't belong to any prosopagnosia support groups. It's just something I work around and, mostly, don't consciously think about, until I upset someone. So, to all those I've annoyed, disconcerted, or embarrassed over the years, I say sorry – and ask for understanding next time!