Contextual Recognition Software

So you are walking down the street or perhaps shopping in the local grocery store and you see me come walk by.  I look you in the face and walk by without saying, "Hi."  I might not have recognized you.  Starch that, I did not recognize you.  Perhaps we met and talked a few times, I might even know your name.  Did we talk at my work place or at yours?  Did you have a bicycle helmet on at the time?  We're you wearing something completely different?  These little things might mean all the difference to as why I did not see you.

When I think about it my 'Contextual Recognition Software' package is constantly operating and I see people all the time, in their context.  There are the regular cashiers at the grocery store, there are people roaming the neighbourhood streets constantly, there are the regular customers at work and the regular people in the stores I frequent.  There are the regular people whom I ride my bike with in the evenings, but all these people I recognize regularly are in a certain context; if I meet them out of context, I might walk right by them without seeing them, because I don't.

It is most definitely an aspect of my Autism.  I expect things in their place and I am bothered when they are not, this is a thing I have seen in all Autistic people, why should I be any different.  I don't get as bothered and I have learned to adjust, but when I a walking down the street and I am not expecting to see you, I won't.  

I only recently became aware of the problem.  I thought for years that I had a problem with remembering people's faces and their names so I picked up the habit of greeting everyone with a nod if I thought they recognized me.  If they were not looking at me just in my general direction, a nod would be ignored as an inconsistency.  Sometimes if I do recognize someone I wait for them to announce their recognition, because that is what I prefer.  

I noticed last year that I would be talking to someone I had met a few days ago on a bike ride and not know who they were or where I had met them leading to some embarrassing conversations, which I constantly play back in my head, because one time embarrassment is not as nice as constant embarrassment.  

After that one time, I have started to notice many other instances of similar failed recognitions and I then tried to figure out what was different about the encounter.  There is not other way to understand it other than failing to recognize people out of the context that I meet them in.  It bothers me but I don't see a fix for me anytime soon.