My Diagnosis 3: Reading Faces

After a few questions, the Professor burrowed into a startlingly large bag and brought out a sheaf of papers. They appeared to have faces printed on them. Sort of like the things detectives look through to find the criminal. He held one up. The person on it looked dead. Perhaps they were dead criminals.
The Professor asked what emotion the person was expressing. I had no idea. The Professor dropped a hint. I had no idea. He then gave me two options. I guessed the wrong one. He tried another. I guessed wrong again.
He then flourished a picture of a pretty girl, assuring me that I would definitely get this one right. No, Professor, I won’t. Apparently, she was flirting. There is such a thing as a flirting face? A flirting face? Why was I never told? I have since looked at lots of faces for that illusive flirting face but either people don’t want to flirt with me – entirely possible – or I’m just not getting this whole flirting face thing. Maybe there’s a night-school that teaches it.
The Professor was tiring of the game and asked if I could recognise a smile if I saw it. Did I detect a hint of sarcastic face there Professor? I responded that when people showed teeth, it meant that they were happy and welcoming but that this did not apply to all creatures. Dogs, for example.
I was half expecting him to say that this was actually the dog’s flirty face and they pulled it before trying to dry-hump your leg but he didn’t. Instead, he turned to Vanessa and showed her the faces. She went through each one and declared the emotion so fast it made my head spin.
Now my wife rarely surprises me (well, she does, but not always in a good way) but this was top-notch stuff. How in God’s name does she do it? Flirty face. Check. Devious face. Check. Pineapple rammed up the rear face. Check. Every one. The Professor even pulled out pictures of disembodied eyes. Vanessa got most of them right. I wasn’t even asked and it was my bloody consultation. Bet I’d have got the flirty eyes.
The Professor asked me how people look to me if I cannot read their expression. Mostly bored, actually. Or aggressive. Or sort of aggressive because they’re bored. That’s it. The sum total of what a face means to me. Except showing teeth, but that’s not really a face is it? I mean, my Nana has false teeth and if she whipped them out of the drawer and brandished them at me, it probably wouldn’t count as a smile.
Since I can’t get any information from faces, I don’t tend to bother looking at them. I was once introduced to a room full of people. I remembered each name perfectly and which chair the name went with. Except that, next time I walked in the room, they had all moved round and, although I could remember the names and the original chairs, I didn’t have a clue which name went with which face. I ended up saying a name and then quickly snapping my head to wherever the confirmatory noise came from. I’m sure it made me look entirely sane.
So how do I know what people are thinking? I don’t. I ask Vanessa, she tells me, and I don’t believe her as I have no idea how she could possibly know. Now the secret is revealed, except that I can’t do it. To me, everyone still just looks bored or aggressive and the only way past that is for them to pull a lock-jaw smile when I think they look stupid and will run away from them, very fast.
We carry on with the consultation but I have the unnerving feeling that the Professor keeps pulling flirty faces for the rest of the time we are in there. Professor, I sort of liked it better when you just looked bored. Flirty is not an improvement.