One thing I have noticed in myself and that I don’t really know whether it is commonplace or really weird:
I don’t seem to pay attention to the colour of people’s eyes - something that not always but frequently crops up when people describe other people’s physical appearance.
I.e. for my nearest and dearest (including my parents and my brother), and for other people I have known long enough so I could easily write half a page to a page’s worth on their physical appearance, facial features, walk, mannerisms, voice, apparent and real hair colours, taste in clothing, hue and texture of skin etc, I could not name their eye colour to save my life (except that it’s probably not bright orange or something, because I would probably have noticed that). It just doesn’t seem to be an important datum to me, for some reason. (yellowing or bloodshot sclera I do notice, also impressive eyebrows etc - it’s not as if I don’t look people in the face).
So, a question to others: for people of whom you could give a good physical description, could you also state their eye colour?
No. I know the eye color of four people in the entire world: my wife, my sister, my dad, and my daughter. Like ticker, I’m not 100% sure of my own. My driver’s license says brown, but I think there’s some other colors mixed in; I haven’t really bothered to notice.
Unless it is an unusual colour, no. I just never much paid attention to it. There was one guy in my high school who was insanely popular with the girls. While I thought he was a nice enough guy and somewhat cute, his appeal was lost on me. Finally a friend pointed out that his appeal was in the fact that he had blond hair and brown eyes. I still couldn’t tell you for sure what colour his eyes were. Meh.
Rarely notice, unless it is unusual ( often contacts when I do notice, i.e. unnaturally brilliant blues ). Remember about as often as I notice. I know mine and that of my parents, but if you asked me the colors of my friends’ eyes, I suspect as often as not I’d be guessing based on hair color rather than truly remembering.
But then I’m a bit dense about a lot of observational details. I rarely ever notice anyone’s footwear, for example.
ETA: Oddly enough I’m very cognizant of the color of my cats’ eyes. But that is down to me being interested by cat color genetics, where the genes for coat colors also code for a specific range of eye colors. So scientific geekiness in that case ( rather than pathetic cat-lady obsessiveness - I hope ).
That counts as dense? Christ, I must be borderline comatose. I don’t notice hair color, shirt color (or really what the person is wearing at all), much less what shoes they are wearing. I tell my wife it’s because I’m too busy thinking deep thoughts. Somehow, she’s not buying it.
Very rarely. In my experience women tend to notice eye colour more often than men. My GF pointed out that I had blue eyes and that everyone in the family does too. I hadn’t noticed nor thought about it before.
Before the last ten years I knew all the colors of the families eyes and many friends. Now that my memory is less robust, I know the color of three people’s eyes and one is me.
No (and I’m female). Recently I’ve begun to believe that I have a mild form of face-blindness. I have to see someone on a daily or near-daily basis for a long time before I can recognize them. I’d make a terrible eyewitness – I used to marvel at books and T.V. shows in which crime witnesses gave detailed descriptions to police sketch artists, because the whole concept of being able to do that was completely beyond my personal experience.
The one thing I do recognize is hair color and style. We once had a temp worker who regularly changed her hairstyle, complete with color. The third time I introduced myself to her, she got a little exasperated, but to me, she was a complete stranger without her old hair.
Probably a topic for another thread, but I am also completely oblivious to breast size. I didn’t even realize that it was a way to categorize women until I got into some online TV discussions. I still have no idea whether my closest friends have large or small breasts.
Heh, while I was waiting for preview to come up, I was checking out another thread, and read this:
That’s bizarre to me, and something I didn’t even know existed until I got online.
Nope, I never notice. I didn’t even know my own until I admitted this to my girlfriend and she has started telling me somewhat frequently. So far, my eyes have looked blue, green, hazel, and gray, according to her. Depends on the light.
I’ll notice it if their eyes are striking in some way, but won’t remember it, or consider it a significant part of who they are in thinking back on them. I couldn’t tell you what colour eyes any of my friends have.
I notice brown eyes more readily than other colors. I’m sure it’s due to finding brown eyes more appealing than other colors too (not to mention I notice guy’s eyes more readily than women’s).
No, I don’t tend to notice eye color, and am terrible at remembering once I do notice. Because I was embarrassed about this, I recently made a concerted effort to notice and remember my husband’s eye color (hazel). We’ve been married five years, and until a month or so ago, I wouldn’t have been able to say for certain. I would have been able to say that his eyes were sweet and expressive, but color
I think my eye-color blindness is due in part to my being African-American, as well as growing up in a neighborhood where the other most prominent ethnic group was Italian-American. Since the majority of eyes among the people I saw most often when I was young were some variation of brown, eye color didn’t register as something worth noticing.
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