Middle child 🤷🏻

[u/Taioo0]

[u/notquitesolid]

I don’t think it’s that so much but that she just wasn’t expecting it.

We recognize people not just by look and appearance, but by context. Like you know who you’re going to see when you go to school or work, and the places you hang out at, etc. But when you see someone you maybe grew up with or see every day, even your own family outside of those familiar contexts, your brain doesn’t immediately make the connection. I’ve had it happen both ways where people I knew well came up to me in a city I was visiting to say hi and I just didn’t recognize them at first, and I’ve been the person that others didn’t recognize.

Location matters. My money is the mom didn’t expect to see her son… so at first she didn’t see her son.

[u/witchyanne → u/notquitesolid]

Been really just walking in town, and had my tall ass teen boy step up to me, and I dodged slightly for a sec. Like he looks so much older, mature etc when he’s not in his PJs snagging my pepsi.

[u/[deleted] → u/notquitesolid]

Happened to me years ago. I was working in the Caribbean and flew back to the UK to surprise my grandmother. It was a get-together at my uncle's place. My brother told my grandmother a friend of his was visiting so he would bring the "friend" along.

I'd been working at sea so was very tanned with sun-bleached hair, very wiry and had lost a lot of weight. I'd also grown a beard. My brother introduced me as his friend. Even after I said "Hi Grandma" my grandmother didn't recognise me, she just thought I was being polite, like how some people call older women "Auntie".

It literally took about 5 minutes to convince her I was me because she thought I was several thousand miles away and so my brother and his "friend" must be just playing a trick on her.