Remember this thread? It brought together a whole bunch of people who’d spent their lives thinking they were the only one with this strange quirk, or mild handicap - they don’t automatically know left from right.
I’m one of the many who was reassured, and it reminded me of another minor defect I suffer from - phone deafness. It’s irritating and sometimes embarrassing.
At least 8 or 9 times out of 10, I don’t recognise people’s voices when they call me on the phone. The worst thing you can do to me is phone with a breezy: “Hi, it’s me!” without actually stating your name. Because the odds are I will be stumped.
Even if you say “It’s Ann” or some other common name, I will have to go through a subtle process of asking vague, non-commital questions aimed at establishing which Ann you are. Asking “How was your holiday in the Maldives?” or “How’s the gall bladder these days?” is out.
If you have a particularly distinctive voice, accent or are one of three or four members of my immediate family, I can just about identify your voice. It’s not quite a case of “It’s your mother, you twit!” but not too far off.
I’ve got reasonably good hearing, and I’m not tone deaf. Why am I phone deaf?
So, am I the only one? Am I about to be reassured by dozens of similarly-afflicted dopers that this is not a freakish abnormality?
Or am I destined to be left to suffer in solitary silence?
I’m very good with recognizing voices, but lousy with faces. When friends show up at my door I often don’t recognize them until they speak. One time my best friend whom I’ve known for 15 years showed up unexpectedly and I wasn’t sure who she was until she said “Hi!”
Hm, I don’t have “phone deafness”, but I do have an inability to understand recorded or non-emotional voices. I hear all the words, but they don’t add up to a sentence.
So I can’t tell what people are singing about in songs, I can’t tell what anyone ever says over a PA (since they’re always reciting a canned message), understand it if someone reads something out of a book (unless they’re telling a story with proper flare), nor tell what the person is talking about on the answering machine without listening to it a couple times.
I don’t have this issue much (and it doesn’t bother me if you need to ask my name–sorry, I’m often a ‘hi it’s me’ person, at least with close friends) but I do find that voices that are transmitted electronically tend to sound different. I never realised just how thick my neighbour’s accent was until I heard him on TV. While I can recognise voices fairly well on the phone (don’t get me started on teamspeak though, thank Og for TS overlay) I do find that people don’t quite sound the same as they do face-to-face.
I also can’t understand many words in songs. There’ll be a phrase here and there I will understand but most of it may as well be gibberish. It usually doesn’t matter how clearly the singer enunciates the words. With few exceptions, I can’t identify who sings what, either. It’s not that everyone sounds the same, really, but that they don’t make a uni
I remember as a kid that my Dad hated callers that didn’t identify themselves. Once he got a caller that said “Hey, guess who this is.” He replied “I give up.” and hung up. Always loved that one myself.
Sage Rat and Tikki, I have the same thing with lyrics. I barely notice them, even if I really like a song.
Musicat - Caller ID is helpful - as long as you recognise the number. I agree it’s a boon - I have it on my cell - but we’re too cheap to pay for the service for our landline.
I just say, “I was just listening to some odd music, and I didn’t hear you very well. Who are you?” Sometimes I’m pleasantlly surprised, sometimes not. I don’t have caller ID. Nobody who calls me means me any harm, and I can always say, “No, we gave enough this year, I hope your next call works out.” Or, alternatively, “We had to trim our list, and you didn’t make the cut.” Goodbye."
YMMV, but check with your phone provider. Caller ID is free in my area from my landline company and from all celphone companies. And for those that charge, they often have an option to display only the number (not very useful) or the number and name (very useful). That’s $6/month per line, and I don’t expect that to last long with the competition giving it out free.
If you live in an area where most people don’t even know about it, then they won’t block it, and it works well. It also helps discriminate between junk calls. I couldn’t live without it.
However, celphone calls don’t transmit the name yet, but my celphone can link an incoming number with a name in the internal directory and display that.
Once when I flew to the parental lands to spend holidays with my Mom and Dad, I became quite seriously concerned that I would not recognize them when I saw them. (I needn’t have worried: they were the ones smiling and approaching me and saying ‘how was the trip?’)
I’m not at all sure I’d recognize myself. I mean, I know myself in the mirror but that’s largely because I know I’m standing in front of a freaking mirror at the time. If you xeroxed me (so to speak) and I met my double coming the other direction on the sidewalk, I might get a strong shot of “that person looks a lot like me” (assuming I noticed, I’m on autopilot a lot when I’m out and about) but making the jump between that and “damn, that person looks exactly like me, we could be identical twins”)? Probably not.
And forget about me recognizing coworkers out-of-context (e.g., in the supermarket aisle). By the 18th month, I’ll probably know your name and recognize you at work (although I may get you and another person you remind me of perpetually confused, don’t take it personal), but that recognition only works in conjunction with you being in an environment I expect to find you in.
This is my problem too. I can recognize my parents where I expect to see them, like in their house. But if I randomly met one of them on the street I’m not sure I’d recognize them. Same with friends–if I’m expecting them to show up at my door, that works fine, but if they show up unexpectedly I have to wait until they open their mouths before I can identify them.
Not recognising people that I know well, but in a different context, does sound strange. Your own parents!? However, it happens to me quite a lot with people I know vaguely, or have only met once or twice.
Although this thread did not produce a mass membership support group for people who share my affliction, the link between phone-deafness and not absorbing song lyrics was something I hadn’t made before.
I mostly have phone deafness in my mother’s phone. Pretty much anybody who calls me is already in my list so my phone states their name.
I’ve put most of Mom’s frequent callers in her ID list (Spain doesn’t have a reliable caller ID service but her phone’s agenda works). There’s a couple who call from their home phones, work phones, daughters’ phones… so those I still don’t have nailed down. A couple months back I instituted a policy of never taking up Mom’s phone unless it gives me a name: it’s saved me several long calls with that specific idiot who insists on asking about Every. Single. One. Of my relatives.
Hi, I’m gigi and I too am phone-deaf. Unless the person says something unique to our relationship, I’m lost. I usually just say noncommital things until I figure it out.
It’s interesting the folks that are mentioning not recognizing faces. I saw a special on this syndrome prosopagnosia, a whole family who could not recognize faces at all. It hurt their careers as people would get offended but once they realized they had this condition they could compensate by asking everyone where they knew them from, etc.
I recognize that I know someone’s face but out of context I have to really wrack my brain. There’s someone who walks by my office and gives me a big Hi, Gwen and I have no clue who she is. I just smile back and respond, hey, how’s it going. Someday she will confront me like Mulva on Seinfeld and I’ll be screwed. :o
Those of you who characterize yourself as “lousy” at recognizing faces – do you know there is a neurological condition known as prosopagnosia which accounts for your inability to recognize faces – even those of people closest and most important to you? I read about it recently in a magazine. Wikipedia page.
