Have you ever had someone greet you so warmly and confidently that they clearly lnow you, but you haven’t got a clue who they are?
Today this happened to me - she turned out to be the lovely vet who had taken great care of my cats until the last one crossed over the rainbow bridge 4 years ago. I was astonished to be remembered by someone who must have had so many pet parents into her treatment room.
As a teacher this happens a lot. A security guard stopped me once and introduced himself to me as he recognized me with affection.
He’d been a right rascal at school so I was amused by this random encounter. I was fumbling for the till receipt lol
I’m a swimming teacher. I currently teach swimming in a school for children with severe and profound learning difficulties, but previously used to teach baby and toddler swimming with the parents in the pool with their little ones.
I was recently waiting to pick up my 16 year old who helps with Cub Scouts. One of the parents couldn’t work out where they knew me from, but eventually realised I had taught their now 9 year old to swim as a baby!
There was also the time I was walking near home and saw the dad of a toddler I was currently teaching to swim - I saw him in the pool every week. I said hello, and he looked confused before the penny dropped and he said “Oh hello, I didn’t recognise you with your clothes on” !
I was a swimming teacher too and taught mentally handicapped adults to swim. Whilst queuing for entrance tickets with the group one of them pushed ahead and asked the guy in the ticket office , “ What did you have for breakfast?”
It was something he asked everyone he met.
I had to explain, please tell him what you had as he wont move on otherwise!
They loved their success in the pool. It was a joy to help.
I met my wife, another helper, through this group work.
We swim every day ! Learning to swim is an important life skill. As a child I nearly drowned 3 times!
I’m a Life Saver too.
As a teacher kids were amazed to see me at large at the weekends.. presuming I stayed in school all my life ! It sometimes felt like that ha ha!
“Out of context” is exactly the problem I have. I’d like to know what brain-disconnect makes it so hard to register faces in the first place, and then when I see someone I’m supposed to know somewhere else (a store clerk at the library, someone who works in one place at another place) it’s that much worse. I have a good visual memory otherwise.
@ABGM I once stepped off a train to be face to face with a very familiar person, and gave a cheery “hello” to him. Then I realised he was the newsreader I’d been seeing on TV every evening!