LETTER TO THE EDITOR

I’ve done it again. Nipped a potential friendship in the bud by failing to recognize said potential friends in public. They live on my street, and I had talked with them several times in their yard as I walked my dog. Then in a restaurant the other day, I failed to recognize them until well into the meal when I heard her voice and it clicked. But it was too late. I’m pretty sure they think I intentionally snubbed them.

I have often wondered if I have a neurological defect of some kind because this was not a random happening. Once I failed to recognize my dentist when we met in Walmart. I did think he looked vaguely familiar, but, like Mary outside the tomb, it was only when he spoke my name that I recognized him. I wondered if this condition has a name, so I looked it up. It does. It’s called prosopagnosia, or face blindness, a rare, little-known disorder that is hard to recognize. It doesn’t show up on tests.

New research by [Thomas] Grüter and his wife, both medical doctors, suggested 2.5 percent of the general population in Germany have the disorder.

“So it’s millions of people suffering from that, but it wasn’t known,” Grüter said, adding that he thinks it’s reasonable the same would hold across Europe” (Bryner, Jeanna. Live Science. 29 April.2010).

Obviously, it holds true for at least one person here in Holly Springs, Miss., USA. I wonder how many others suffer from this affliction. If you have ever experienced anything like this and wouldn’t mind letting me interview you, please contact me at 662-306-0787. I’m doing a research project with intention to publish it.

Sincerely,
Margaret Delashmit
Holly Springs