Faces

Two weeks ago I had a bunch of posts planned. Had some great ideas, nice introspective, artsy-ish, reflective stuff. Then life happened and Toronto had that explosion and the Olympics started and Bolt and the Jamaicans won and my wife turned all Janet Pym on me and set her trained squad of killer wasps on me (Wu-Tang had killer bees she has wasps go figure) and well lets just say I got sidetracked and never got a chance to post on them.

Now I cant even remember what I was going to talk about. Actually I still remember one but not the angle I was going to approach it on two weeks ago so let me make up something.

Faces. They define us on a casual level don't they? Like for instance living in this multicultural society that is Toronto I've learned to at least partially figure out race and nationality from faces well not only faces but clothes and speech and mannerisms and attitudes and other stuff too (its called stereotyping) but lets just deal with faces.

Have you ever noticed that similar faces can span races? Like I ran into a black acquaintance the other day and realized that her face was very similar to that of a Chinese friend of mines' in terms of the shape and the cheekbones and stuff like that. I also had a situation where I met this Indian guy who's since become a friend and couldn't believe how much he looked like one of my black friends back home. Uncanny resemblance. Kinda weird when you think about it actually.

And think about how we work on face recognition. I'm always seeing people and thinking hey he or she looks like so an so. Its an ever evolving process too because if this person somehow becomes your acquaintance later on or you see them enough times you start to realize the dissimilarities between them and the person you on first casual glance thought they resembled. Then they themselves are entered into your face database and suddenly you are comparing other folk to them.

Then there is the whole faces with regards to location situation. This time I wont go into my some folks don't recognize me outside of the office spiel or my but the guy was 5 inches shorter, at least two dress shirt sizes wider and wearing a tux while I had on a suit spiel either but sometimes I see someone I've had some minor interaction outside of the regular place I'm accustomed to seeing them at and then I try to figure out where they are from.

Its like detective work. OK like seeing the restaurant server walking his dog or the hardware girl buying groceries out of uniform. You're like I know her but from where? I know she works in a retail capacity now is she from Wendy's or is that the girl from the book place? your mind churns and then click oh its the girl from Tim Hortons. Right!

Wrong! Oh its that lady who works in the office down the road that I see at the station every week. Happens all the time.

Whats interesting about that is if I went back into the same store or the same location I normally see the person at I'd have no problem recognizing them because in your mind there is that association between place and face. Its part of your built in face recognition protocol I think. But when you see them out of uniform or on the bus or playing with their kids in the park suddenly it becomes a detective puzzle to your brain. Takes a while to figure out sometimes too.

That's all I got to say for now.