Revisionist History - Face Value

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

Malcolm and Lucie discover that they experience something very differently.   If you suspect you might have a problem recognizing faces and you want to get involved in the research they’re doing at Dr. Joe DeGutis’s lab, go to: www.faceblind.org And if you’re curious about your own facial recognition abilities, these online tests are a good place to start:  https://www.troublewithfaces.org/test-yourself-1 https://www.bbk.ac.uk/psychology/psychologyexperiments/experiments/facememorytest/startup.phpSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pushkin. Before we get to this episode, I want to recommend another podcast for you. Fiasco, Oran Contra is another Pushkin podcast by the co-creator of Slow Burn, Leon Neyfok. You'll learn how Ronald Reagan found himself in the middle of a scandal that looked like it just might take down his presidency. Fiasco, Oran Contra is available wherever you get your podcasts.

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It's all the weird and wonderful stories about the foods you eat every day. Find Gastropod and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, hello. Malcolm Gladwell here. Today I'm in the studio with my producer, Lucy Sullivan. Lucy? Hi Malcolm. I understand you have a story for me about a particular misunderstanding. That is true. We're here because I want to tell you about something I'm calling the Missy Incident.

It totally changed the way that I think about something foundational and it also reminded me of you. Of me? Of you. Oh my god. Okay. So it all happened at this coffee shop that I go to all the time. Can you tell me what the name of the coffee shop is?

Malcolm, I can tell you the name of the coffee shop off mic, but my fellow cafe goers did not want me to name it on this podcast because it's that good. Oh, it's that good. Oh, it's that good. Yeah, it's so good and it's the kind of place that's always packed, so you have to be comfortable sitting with a stranger if you want to get a seat. And that's where this all starts.

So the person at the center of this, her name is Missy Kurzweil. She was fresh off of maternity leave with her second kid when the incident happened. I think one of the things that happens when you have a baby and are on maternity leave is like you lose a bit of your identity and yourself. You're spending all your time with a newborn who can't talk back to you. And so I was sort of just navigating that transition and wanting human interaction.

So Missy is looking for a place to work outside of her home office and she finds this coffee shop. On her third morning kind of feeling out this place is this where she wants to set up camp for her HQ. She sits down at this table and in walks this guy and he's like, hey you mind if I sit here? She says sure. This is JJ Good. So JJ and Missy are sitting down together. What happens? Missy's on the phone with her kids' pediatrician, and JJ is sitting there eavesdropping, and you know, the doctor asks for what's the patient's name, and Missy says, oh, his name's Remy. And JJ freaked out, because he was like, you have a Remy?

Because I have a Remy. And then, of course, like, then we were off to the races. Turns out they both have cats named Sunny. They both are freelancers. He's a cookbook writer. She's also a writer. So for me, it was like on many levels was just really kind of a special bond instantly. And I don't know if this is normal for you, but like I don't usually, I'm not usually

chatting it up with people at the coffee shop. But these two, and there's nothing romantic going on here. Nothing romantic. Strictly friends who are just like, wow, we have so much in common. I think no matter where you're at in your life, meeting someone like JJ feels unusual because he's just so open and so seemingly genuinely interested in what you have to say and what are all these details about your life.

So Missy is excited. She goes home and she tells her husband, oh my gosh, I've met this great friend and I found this great coffee shop to work. Like things couldn't be better. And so for the next few days, Missy and JJ sit together, work together, crucially always at the same spot in the front.

But one day she comes in and their usual table is taken. So she just heads to a different one in the back. And maybe an hour after I sat down, I see JJ kind of walk to the back and he's looking around seemingly for a table and we make direct eye contact and I start to say, hey JJ, but he looks at me and sort of kind of registers it and turns around and walks the other way. He ghosts her. He ghosts her. Like, completely, like, she was like,

we made eye contact. I was like, maybe he didn't see me, but no, he saw me. Our eyes locked. I went to wave. He turned around. So now Missy's like, what is going on here? Like, she had just met his wife a couple days before, and she's like, maybe the wife wasn't comfortable with, like, or maybe she's thinking something's going on. Maybe I said something weird to him.

Like, she's really like spinning her wheels. She's reeling, she's reeling. And I went back the next day, sat in the back, and the same thing happened, where he walks by, sort of sees me, seemingly like we make eye contact. And this time I think I probably was a little bit more reserved because of what had happened the day before. And he turns around and walks the other way again. And now I'm like, okay,

I think I might've said something that offended him. My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. And since we're talking about misunderstandings, whatever you think is going on in the story right now, I promise you, you've got it wrong. So, Missy is obviously super bummed about this.

You know, I mean, listen, I've been with my husband for a long time, so I haven't been like on the dating scene, but it definitely had an equivalent, like, you put yourself out there and you, like, are, you know, think that you're connecting with someone, but they're not experiencing that same thing. She considered trying to find a new place to work, but like I said, the coffee shop is just too good. And so after a few days she decides you know what I'm just gonna go back I'm gonna ignore the weirdness and this time their usual spot in the front is open. So she sits down and then right on cue JJ walks

in. And he sees me and his face lights up and he's like Missy you haven't been here in like a week or two it I've missed you where have you been? And then he sits down and he's chit chatting and he's catching up and he's like, Missy, you haven't been here in like a week or two. I've missed you, where have you been? And then he sits down and he's chit chatting and he's catching up and he's asking questions just like nothing, no time passed. Like nothing happened. Like absolutely nothing happened. Yeah.

And I was so confused. I did not know what to make of that but I was kind of just relieved that the the freezeout was over, and so I just went with it and was like, oh you know, good to see you again. And I just sort of picked up where we left off and I didn't say anything. And it wasn't too long after that that she discovered what was really going on and why it seemed like this new friend was just totally ignoring her. I'm sitting at a table with JJ, and a woman walks in, super friendly, comes over to JJ and says,

hey, JJ, and I think goes to give him a hug and ask some questions about how his kids are. Their conversation lasts just a few minutes, and then she walks away to get a coffee. And he looks at me and he goes, I don't know who that is. And I was like, what? You seemed like you were friends with her. And he was like, I have this face blindness thing.

It gives me a lot of anxiety cause I'm probably supposed to know her. And then I think I paused and I said something like, is that why you broke up with me six months ago? And this is the part that made me think of you, Malcolm, face blindness. Because I've heard that you also might be a little face blind yourself. Yes, yes, that's true. This happens to me all the time. I won't remember if I need to be exposed to a face, a person on multiple occasions before

their face becomes meaningful or even their, I don't know whether their face becomes meaningful or even there I don't know whether their face is becoming meaningful or that I'm developing so many other ways of recognizing them that I'm feel on safer ground. Mm-hmm like you're not just gonna remember someone that you've met once or twice. No, there's no chance that I will. I had a session, it's funny, because I was sitting in my favorite coffee shop and I see there's a guy who runs the wine shop across the street. His name is Michael. I know Michael for years and I see Michael, or I think it's Michael, and I see a man in his 50s about 5'9 with glasses and a baseball cap across the street from the wine shop

and I think, oh the 50s, about 5'9", with glasses and a baseball cap, across the street from the wine shop. And I think, oh, that's got to be Michael. And I go, Michael! And the guy looks at me like really weird and comes over. And it was like my nightmare. It's like, oh my God, no, it's not. It's just another dude who's in town who looks a lot like Michael. But that was my system failed. It's very rare for me to risk it like that. But I risked it because I thought if Michael thinks, I had the reverse JJ, if Michael thinks I'm ignoring him, then that's really bad because I go to the wine shop all the time and I like Michael.

See, it's interesting because this never happens to me. Like I'm often on the other side of it being like, all right, I'm just going to pretend like I don't know this person. You always remember. I always remember. And I always remember people who are completely insignificant to me, like not in any sort of like value judgment way, it's just like,

oh, I met you once at my friend's party four years ago and now you are standing next to me in line at Target. That's so completely foreign, yeah. And this is why I actually, Malcolm, to be honest, like when I had first heard, because I think I heard from someone in passing before we started working together, like, oh, Malcolm, he's face-blind.

He has trouble recognizing people. And I was like, okay, like, yeah, he's face-blind. Like, because I was thinking, like, I've never forgotten. I just don't forget people's faces. So I was like, if I were you, and I was meeting a million people all the time, and people recognized me from book covers, that would be kind of a disorienting experience. And it would be kind of nice to have an excuse was like, if I were you and I was meeting a million people all the time and people recognized me from book covers,

that would be kind of a disorienting experience and it would be kind of nice to have an excuse like, oh, I don't remember you because I'm like face-blind or whatever. But I just couldn't believe that that was true until I heard this story. Yeah, no, no, I do. It makes me feel bad because I, I mean, I feel for JT because if you're in this constant state of worry about that you're going to be perceived as cold or aloof, and you're not. Yeah. And so this perception problem is exactly what fascinates me about face blindness, which

I've now spent way too many hours learning about after hearing this story of Missy and JJ. Because I've always thought that being able to recognize someone was about, you know, having a good or a bad memory, whatever that means. Or just frankly caring enough to remember them. Like you worry that you might be perceived as cold or aloof if you don't say hi to Michael. Or Missy thought her new friend was ignoring her. I seem to remember way more faces than I want to. I really wanted to understand what's actually going on in our brains when all this happens. After the break, Lucy Sullivan takes us behind the face and into the brain.

Have you ever wondered why New York City bagels are so great? Does it really have to do with the water? Maybe you're curious why so many people these days have food allergies. Do scientists know what's going on? How about that long-standing argument we've all had? Do we actually need to rinse the plates before we put them in the dishwasher? You'll find the answer to all of these important questions and more when you join us and listen to Gastropod. It's all the weird and wonderful stories about the foods you eat every day. Find Gastropod and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

JJ Good, Missy's friend from the coffee shop, doesn't know exactly when he realized he had a problem with faces. He just kept having these strange experiences. Like this one time when he ran into a woman on the train and he knew he was supposed to know who she was, but he had no idea. And we had this conversation where I was like, how is everything? Things are good with me. Like I didn't mention any, there's no specifics because I good with me. Like I didn't mention any,

there was no specifics because I wanted to make, like I didn't want it. If you walked in and someone had no idea who you were, you would feel bad about yourself. JJ said he also realized something was off when he'd watch movies and TV shows. He'd sometimes completely miss a big plot point. When my wife and I were watching a show,

I'll be like, who's that guy? And she's like, it's the main character. He just has a hat on. Like, it's literally Robert De Niro from the other scene. And I was like, ooh, this is kind of strange. All of this has led to many awkward situations, and it's made JJ very aware of other people's feelings. What happened with Missy still haunts him.

I am afraid that I might have an interaction with someone and I might not recognize them and I might not give them the attention that makes them feel good. It's worth noting that JJ himself is easy to spot. He was born with one arm. Walking around with one arm, you are highly recognizable. It's like how many one-armed people do you meet? Probably not a lot. So everybody comes in to the coffee shop and if you see me you probably will recognize me from as that guy from the coffee shop the next day but I don't recognize a lot

of the people who come in. A while back JJ told some friends about these weird moments he'd always had not recognizing people and they asked if he'd ever heard of face blindness. They said Oliver Sacks, the science writer, had it too. And that's when it clicked for JJ. So it is a little bit of this stealth disorder. I mean the people only kind of learn they have it often when they are subjected to a whole bunch of new people they have to meet. This is Dr. Joe Degoutis. He's a cognitive neuroscientist and he studies facial recognition. Degoutis teaches at Harvard Medical School and runs a lab

out of the Boston VA Hospital. We've studied how people become aware that they have this and often it's a little rocky. It's a little bit like, you know, in school they're like I just don't pay attention or I don't care as much about people or maybe I'm a little bit on the spectrum. They have all these attributions they can give. The thing about people who are quote unquote face blind is that they're not actually blind. They're not seeing blurs where people's faces are. They can see eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and they can read emotions and tell whether or not someone's attractive the same way we all do.

The best estimates I could find suggest that around 3% of the population has some form of face blindness. Sometimes it's the result of a traumatic brain injury, but some people are just born with it. Scientists think it could be genetic, or that the network in the brain that recognizes faces just doesn't develop normally. But for most of us, a face is the trigger that calls up all the information we know about a person. If you see somebody's face, it quickly triggers the retrieval of all this other information about them, like you know who they are, how you know them, all these other details about the person. So it has this kind of privileged role in terms of getting all this other information out. The clinical term for face blindness is prosopagnosia.

And agnosia is an inability to recognize something. Prosopagnosia uses the Greek word for face, prosopoe, which also happens to be the Greek word for face, prozopo, which also happens to be the Greek word for person. So much of who we are is wrapped up in this one part of our bodies. I want you to stop for a second. Think about your mom or your best friend or your kid. You're not picturing their elbows, are you?

I mean, maybe you are, because here things have happened. My point is, for most of us, it's almost impossible to decouple who someone is from their face. It's something that is also very special about humans. This special thing that Dagoudis is talking about here has to do with our brains. We have a specific network that's just for recognizing faces, and it functions unlike any other kind of cognition. So when I recognize a chair, I'm like, oh, OK, it has something to sit on, it has some legs,

and boom, it's a chair. You're recognizing things at this functional level, which is like, OK, how do I interact with this thing? Usually you can do it part by part. One of the things that we do with faces more than any other visual object is you process it as a gestalt as a whole because we have to kind of recognize them and not just like okay that's a face that's a face we have to be like okay that's my friend oh that's not that's so boy that's the

person at work who I need to avoid and so it's like I think that the individuation demands of faces maybe are why we kind of have this specialized system to process faces. Frogs use sound, birds use smell, and we humans love this one cluster of features sitting on top of our necks. We are social animals, and researchers think that's part of why humans developed this special recognition network in our brains. Because it served us. Faces have evolved to look really different from person to person, more so than any other body part.

Scientists at UC Berkeley think that this had an evolutionary purpose. It helped us socialize. Not only was it beneficial to be recognizable, but also then to be able to recognize others. Humans had to get really good at differentiating friend from foe. And we did get really good at recognizable, but also then to be able to recognize others. Humans had to get really good at differentiating friend from foe. And we did get really good at it. Well, most of us anyways. Degoutis told me that the ability to recognize faces is a spectrum. These are all these kind of internal things that we don't talk about, and we just assume

that everybody's kind of like us, right? And after the break, we're going to the other end of that spectrum to see what it's like for the people who never forget a face, the super recognizers. Have you ever wondered why New York City bagels are so great? Does it really have to do with the water? Maybe you're curious why so many people these days have food allergies. Do scientists know what's going on?

How about that long-standing argument we've all had? Do we actually need to rinse the plates before we put them in the dishwasher? You'll find the answer to all of these important questions and more when you join us and listen to Gastropod. It's all the weird and wonderful stories about the foods you eat every day. Find Gastropod and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. One morning, back in 1984, a little kid named Frank Vaughn was about to have a very exciting day of school.

I was nine years old and my fourth grade class was invited on a school field trip to the governor's office in Little Rock. That's Governor Bill Clinton's office to be exact. They arranged us all in a semi-circle in crossleg style, and we waited for the man to show up. And typical of politicians, he was around 15 minutes late. He walks out, he sits down, and he immediately turns and he snaps his fingers and points at one of his female staffers and said, You, go get my Pepsi. And she took off on a dead run for his inner office to go grab that Pepsi.

Frank was a scrawny nine-year-old boy with feathery blonde hair that grew out in all directions. Nerdy kid, always cracking jokes for attention. Frank said that he and his classmates were so excited about meeting the governor. There was this almost throne-like velvet chair sitting in the middle of the room, and he sits down in it and he crosses his legs and he, you know, just sort of gets himself arranged. Frank remembers feeling in awe of this man sitting on a throne, barking out Pepsi orders. He said the governor greeted them all and started asking them questions. And then Clinton zeroed in on Frank. I don't know if I just have one of those faces or what, but for some reason he settled on me

and he pointed at me and he said, you, what do you want to be when you grow up? And after witnessing everything I had just seen, the only answer I could come up with was, I want to be you. Frank said that his teacher looked horrified at this response. He thought he was about to get in trouble like he usually did for cracking jokes. And then the governor started laughing. And of course, when he starts laughing, his staff joins in. And we all joined in.

And it sort of released all the tension in the room. Clinton moved on from Frank, asked some other kids questions. He lectured them about the importance of eating their vegetables and doing their homework. And then he sent the class on their way. That was that. OK, so now we're going to fast forward 13 years later, March of 1997. Clinton is just a few months into his second term as president. And back in his home state of Arkansas, a series of tornadoes have just destroyed the

town of Arcadelfia. 25 people were killed, dozens were injured, 1,200 buildings were leveled. It was a huge disaster. Governor Mike Huckabee declares a state of emergency, FEMA is called in, and a few days after the storm settles and the rebuilding has started, President Clinton visits Arcadelfia. It's obvious that you all have done a lot of work here

in just a couple of days. Yes, sir. I've been amazing. Everybody has really pitched in. Frank Vaughn is no longer a little boy. He's a six-foot-one college student attending Wachita Baptist University in Arcadelfia. That feathery blonde hair is now closely cropped in the style typical of his fellow members

of the Reserve Officer Training Corps. Frank and his friends heard that the president was in town, so they went to try and see him. Frank said that there were hundreds of people lining the streets of Arcadelfia doing the same. And honestly when I saw the entourage coming up the street with the Secret Service agents and the governor was with him, I thought well he's gonna walk down the middle of the street because there's no way they're gonna let him have, you know, physical contact with people. He's the president. And I was wrong. President Clinton, ever the people person, starts making his way into the crowd,

shaking hands and taking pictures with kids. There was a limited about a three block area that we were allowed to stand on from street to street to street. But he literally went up one block, shaking hands, turned, went back down the next block, shaking hands, turned and went back up the third block. I mean, he spent a good four hours just walking these blocks and shaking hands with people. And then, Clinton gets to where Frank and his friends are standing. He stopped, stuck his hand out, shook my hand, and he looked at me, and he leaned in and he said, do you still want to be me? Frank said that he almost passed out.

There he was, in the middle of a disaster zone in his college town, shaking hands with the president of the United States, who has just recalled a small anecdote from meeting him 13 years earlier, when he was nine years old and several feet shorter. The first thought in my mind was I need to go to church and pray because this is like demonic. It was just so shocking and listen when I tell this story I know it's hard to believe. I understand that it seems almost impossible but if as we say back home if I'm lying I'm dying. I asked Frank how he thought Clinton

could possibly have remembered him. Some people are just like that I guess. It's little wonder that he was, you know, born in Hope, Arkansas, to a very poor family and ended up being the most powerful man in the world. You don't get there without talent. People always talk about this mythical charisma Clinton possessed. He dazzled voters on the campaign trail. And believe it or not, there are tons of stories just like Frank's. The comedian John Mulaney has a whole bit in his 2015 comedy special about Clinton's

ability to remember people. I want to tell you one more story before I get out of here about the night I met a guy named Bill Clinton. Mulaney tells the story of this disagreement between his parents who went to college with Clinton at Georgetown University over whether or not Clinton would remember his mom, Ellen. Apparently, he would sometimes walk her home from the library in college. Mulaney talks about his mom dragging him to a campaign event in the 90s to see if the presidential hopeful still remembered their walks. Here's what happens.

She was swinging me like a snowplow. I was just mowing down fat Chicago Democrats. I pushed past all the reporters. I pushed past all the photographers. We pushed past all the secret service. We land at Bill Clinton's feet. Bill Clinton turns, looks at my mom and says, Hey Ellen, because he never forgets a bitch ever. Remember, facial recognition abilities are on a spectrum. Researchers are pretty sure it's a normal distribution with prosopagnosics on the low end. Most of you listening are probably somewhere in the normal range. But there are also these people on the very high end, the super recognizers, those who never forget a face,

ever. Something that the super recognizers are uniquely good at is being able to identify people even after a lot of time has passed or they've made changes to their appearance. This is something that Bill Clinton is very good at. Now, we can't know for sure, and Bill Clinton has never said anything about this super recognizing ability but I'd venture to say that he is almost certainly a super recognizer. Dr. Joe DeGutis, the neuroscientist, told me that one of the ways they test facial recognition abilities is by showing people pictures of celebrities when they were kids, the before they were famous

test. Oh it's a picture of like, you know, Barack Obama when he was like two years old. And super recognizers can like see it. There's this kind of cool extrapolation thing that you can be like, I can see, you know, how that could be a younger version of Barack Obama. While I was reporting the story, I came across a bunch of tests online,

like the before they were famous one. You can take them to gauge how good or bad you are at recognizing faces. And I kept getting really good scores on them. Suddenly, everything started to make sense. Remember earlier when I was telling Malcolm that I never forget people, that I sometimes feel creepy

after recognizing someone in line at Target? I started to suspect that maybe I was one of these super recognizers. While J.J. misses the plot of some movies and TV shows, I get distracted by extras. Like for instance, when I notice that a passing character in a 2001 episode of Sex and the City is the guy who, spoiler alert, gets murdered in the first season

of the show White Lotus 20 years later.-blind people can't find their friends on the street, while I sometimes walk past someone that I recognize as my high school friend's cousin who I've only seen pictures of. In one of our early calls, I told DeGudis about my theory. And being the good scientist he is, he wasn't sold right away. I mean, maybe you just like convinced yourself that you're super and you're not really super. He needed cold hard data, not random BuzzFeed quizzes. So I hopped on zoom with his research assistant Kayla Kusil and took a

three hour battery of tests designed to definitively say whether or not I was a super recognizer. designed to definitively say whether or not I was a super recognizer. Alright, so the next one is called Face Name. You can go ahead and click on that link. The test started off super easy. I was breezing through. So they're showing me that same face from like different angles, and I would say that is extremely easy. But things got weirder as the hours went on, and I started to get a little stressed. Now I'm getting nervous. I'm like, I need to want to get these right. Which is one of the six target faces. One...

I had to do things like remember jobs and names of people whose faces would flash across the screen really quickly. And at one point I was matching spiky blobs with other spiky blobs. That one was so hard. The Georges is really crazy. That made me feel like I took drugs or something. I was like, whoa, what's happening here? Kayla and I wrapped up and she said they'd get back to me in a few days with my results. I was eager to hear them and unsure of what they would be. By the end, I didn't think I did very well, and I was kind of embarrassed about the whole charade.

What if I was just average? A few days later, the verdict was in. Tegutus and I hopped on a Zoom call to go over my results. I mean, you're kind of the complete package for a super recognizer, so I'm- Wow. I feel like, I mean, maybe when kind of the complete package for a super recognizer. So I'm kind of, I feel like, I mean, maybe when I, when you started taking the test, I was a little skeptical, but I think, I think you're, you're right on. I think this is okay.

I have to admit, I was over the moon at being called the complete package. I said, please go on. Actually, looking at your results, you were like perfect on two of the diagnostic tests. Like you didn't get a single item wrong. You also did really well in this very impossible task where we had you try to learn 60 faces in a very short period of time, and you had to recognize them out out of 120 faces. Oh that one was so hard Yeah, no you did. I mean that's the thing We wanted to kind of push you to see what your limits are and you do have limits

But you were really you were really quite good Getting my suspicions confirmed was so gratifying It was cool to know that I have this superpower. Less than 2% of people can say the same. I had to share all of this with Malcolm. You're like the LeBron James of facial recognition. He did say it was a complete package, so I will also take LeBron James if you want to call me that. I'm not going to argue.

My experience of you is dramatically different than your experience of me. I am forced to find alternate means of recognition. What those of us who have impairment in this area do is we get obsessed with all the other possible cues that we can use to identify somebody. And because they're not as reliable as the face, we're always getting into trouble. Yeah, exactly. This is what JJ Good, the guy from the coffee shop, told me that he tries to do too.

That's Caitlin with the beautiful chin. This is Daniel. He has bald head, that's how I remember him. Small bald. So a couple months ago, I spent the morning with him at the coffee shop and he was going around introducing me to all of his friends and telling me how he tries to identify them here. Oh there she is. It took me a while to recognize her but she's got like very distinct glasses which is useful but she's been talking about changing her glasses so I'm worried about that.

So he told me that he tries really hard to find these cues but you know it's it's still hard for him and he never wants a repeat of the Missy incident so his solution is to just treat every person that walks in as if cues, but you know, it's still hard for him, and he never wants a repeat of the Missy incident. So his solution is to just treat every person that walks in as if they are his friend. Everybody who comes in the door, I stare them down because I'm like, I hope I have to see if I recognize you or know you or not. So I'm staring at them and they look at me and they're like, hi? And I'm like, hi! Just in case I know them. And they're like, well, that guy's friendly. And that morning I was there, JJ was surrounded by people.

Like you think he was the mayor or the owner of this place. I was like, did you tell all these people to show up because you knew I was coming? And he was like, nope. So he really has made all these friends, even in spite of the face blindness thing. And I just think that's such a lovely way to live. That is really beautiful.

JJ and Missy are great friends now, despite the incident. You can find them working and chatting at the coffee shop most days. They get dinner every once in a while, and their spouses and kids have become friends too. But their story could have ended very differently. Like our friendship almost ended over this, and this is my nightmare.

So this person felt so bad because I was not giving her the right attention That she like had a whole like crisis. Like what did I do? I feel so bad. And that's why I'm so weird and extra-friendly We've all had these experiences where we don't recognize someone right away or someone doesn't recognize us It can be embarrassing and awkward. But the split-second assumptions that we make about why, that they're aloof, or that we said something that offended them, or that maybe we just aren't memorable,

might be wrong. Faces matter. But it all comes back to what's in our heads. Lucy? That is, you are Lucy, right? Yes, that's me. I changed my shirt, but it's still me. This has been a lot of fun. This has been great. Thanks, Malcolm. Provisionist History is produced by me, Lucy Sullivan, with Ben Nadefafri and Nina Byrd-Lawrence. Our editor is Karen Cicurgi.

Fact-checking by Kate Furby. Original scoring by Luis Guerra. Scoring, mixing, and mastering on this episode by Echo Mountain. Production support from Luke Lamond. Our executive producer is Jacob Smith. Special thanks to Daphne Chen, Sarah Nix, and Greta Cohn, as well as the many people who shared their time and expertise with me for this episode. Brad Duchesne, Bruno Rossian, Sarah Bate, Eric

Along, Heather Sellers, Lexi Malkin, Vivek Rao, and Chris Cochran. If you suspect you might have a problem recognizing faces and you want to get involved with the research they're doing at Dr. Joe deGutis' lab, go to faceblind.org. And if you're curious about your own facial recognition abilities, visit our show notes and take the tests we have linked there. I'm Lucy Sullivan. I'm Lucy Sullivan. Don't forget, listen to Fiasco, Oran Contra, for the story of a not-so-secret scandal that captivated the United States. Fiasco is available where you're listening right now. Have you ever wondered why New York City bagels are so great? Does it really have to do with the water? Maybe you're curious why so many people these days have food allergies.

Do scientists know what's going on? How about that long-standing argument we've all had? Do we actually need to rinse the plates before we put them in the dishwasher? You'll find the answer to all of these important questions and more when you join us and listen to Gastropod. It's all the weird and wonderful stories about the foods you eat every day. Find Gastropod and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.