Ha! I’m good with names and bad with faces. (Seriously, though. I had two friends in High School who, for nearly a year and a half, I thought were the same person, because their names were identical and I never had them in the same class. They weren’t even the same race—one was white and one was Asian.)
You must be using the word “friends” more broadly than I would—I’m not terribly good with faces either¹, but… if I spent a non-trivial amount of time with such people, I would learn to tell them apart from their voices at the very least, and possibly from their body frames, the kinds of things they talk about, their clothing styles, etc.
Well, with strangers’ and casual acquaintances’ faces—I get better if I’ve known someone for a while.
My memory of faces is… compressed. For example, if I’m close to a short white guy with large ears, a small nose and no facial hair, I’ll remember his face pretty well—but every time I meet someone matching the same description, I’ll remember him as having the first guy’s face. So I might not recognize him at all, because I’m comparing his face to a different one, and I certainly won’t tell the two apart. Same thing for voices and body shapes, only worse. I can remember particular items of clothing but not generalize to a style. What they talk about is useful, but not instantaneous.
Ha! I’m good with names and bad with faces. (Seriously, though. I had two friends in High School who, for nearly a year and a half, I thought were the same person, because their names were identical and I never had them in the same class. They weren’t even the same race—one was white and one was Asian.)
That seems a bit extreme. Maybe you have that condition that makes it difficult do distinguish faces?
I have tended to associate with distinctive people, and prefer distinctiveness to attractiveness. Entirely possible.
You must be using the word “friends” more broadly than I would—I’m not terribly good with faces either¹, but… if I spent a non-trivial amount of time with such people, I would learn to tell them apart from their voices at the very least, and possibly from their body frames, the kinds of things they talk about, their clothing styles, etc.
Well, with strangers’ and casual acquaintances’ faces—I get better if I’ve known someone for a while.
My memory of faces is… compressed. For example, if I’m close to a short white guy with large ears, a small nose and no facial hair, I’ll remember his face pretty well—but every time I meet someone matching the same description, I’ll remember him as having the first guy’s face. So I might not recognize him at all, because I’m comparing his face to a different one, and I certainly won’t tell the two apart. Same thing for voices and body shapes, only worse. I can remember particular items of clothing but not generalize to a style. What they talk about is useful, but not instantaneous.