Facial Recognition Anxiety (but probably not the kind you're thinking of)

I have a information processing challenge when it comes to recognizing people: It is very difficult for me to recall the name of a casual acquaintance (co-worker, former classmate, etc.) when I see them outside of the context in which I know them from.

For example, today I was at Starbucks (HailCorporate!) and I saw a guy I worked with not more than a year ago. I can recall all the details of the project we worked on together, but I couldn't recall his name to save my life.

This kind of situation tends to make me very anxious - what if he talks to me? I've learned to just roll through it - when someone is like, "Hey Nik! Good to see you..." I'm always like "Yeah, nice to see you too..." - pronouns are very helpful in this scenario!

It's harder though when I'm with someone, sometimes introductions can be a bit awkward but I'll say "Hey, this is Julie..." and then they'll usually introduce themselves, but I think sometimes people catch up and that's a bit embarrassing.

I think part of this is just how my brain works, and some of it may be related to Dunbar's Number. Thankfully online forums clearly tag people's names everywhere - now if only this site had avatars...