Close encounters of the mistaken identity kind

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I hope the title speaks for itself. My examples:

1973 or 74, the Navy sent me to Millington, TN for training. Special Services offered a trip to Nashville one day - tickets to Opryland and the Grand Ol’ Opry, plus bus there and back. I’m not much into country music, but it beat hanging around the barracks, so off I went.

Just after I entered Opryland, I thought I saw my 10th grade English teacher. Mr. P. was a large man with a distinctive haircut and an equally distinctive way of pushing his hair out of his eyes. I was really shy back then, but I screwed up my courage and approached the man, but as I was saying “Are you Mr. P?” I knew immediately that he wasn’t.

The man very politely said no, and I immediately turned, entered the nearby ladies room, and hid there till I was sure he was gone. There was no reason for me to be embarrassed, but there ya go. Had I been less of a wuss, I might have explained why I approached him. Instead, I’m sure the poor guy was somewhat perplexed at the girl who asked him a question, then ran for the bathroom.

A couple years later, I was stationed in San Diego, and for some reason, I was downtown, alone, waiting for a bus to return to the base. As I sat there, a car drove by, honked, and the guys inside waved. I automatically waved back, for fear they were someone I knew that I didn’t recognize immediately. A minute later, the same car drove past more slowly, and I pretended not to notice, because I realized they were looking for a “date.” Maybe I was in an iffy neighborhood and didn’t know it. Luckily, there were lots of people around and my bus arrived shortly thereafter.

From the other side, I’ve never been mistaken for someone else, but stories of that kind would fit this thread also. Do share!

2

You asked. Although we didn’t look at all alike when we were in HS (and I have my old HS yearbook to prove it), in later life I came to resemble James A. DePriest, eventually music director of the Oregon Symphony a great deal even though he was Black and I am not. To the extent that when the student newspaper at Penn printed his photo a year after I had spent a year there, one of the secretaries was sure it was me. And a man who had just moved to Montreal from Quebec City (where DePriest had spent a number of years as music director) thought we looked amazingly alike. When DePriest guest-conducted the Montreal Symphony, I got a number of strange looks from others in the audience.

3

Just a few weeks ago I had to run out between meetings to get something from the store right down the street from my house. As I came out I saw what I thought was my ex on the other side of the street waiting to cross. This is a guy who I was with for eight years; after that length of time you know every little physical attribute. Not just the obvious stuff, but things like the way they stand, hold their phone, move their head, etc… So I’m looking at him, wondering why he’s walking. Where’s his truck? Did it break down? What’s he doing in my neighborhood? I checked my phone to see if he’d texted / called me. Nope. I walked to the corner and stood there with my hands on my hips, tapping my foot and waiting for him to look up so I can yell to him if he needs a ride somewhere. Finally I shouted “Hey doofus! What’re you doing?”
I don’t know if he couldn’t hear me over the traffic or he thought I was some kind of a nut but he crossed in the other direction. I was tempted to go after him but I had to get back home / to work. I texted bf and he was nowhere near the area. :woman_facepalming:

It was uncanny. This poltergeist had the same body, clothes, sunglasses, even the same hair, and the ex has a pretty unique 'do. It kind of freaked me out.

4

My dad was often mistaken for Buddy Ebsen, who played Jed Clampett in The Beverly Hillbillies. He wasn’t happy about this.

5

I am frequently told that I resemble Clark Kent. (Occasionally, Brad Majors.)

I was in a Walgreens one day. The manager stopped to chat. He told me that I bear a striking resemblance to the corporate CEO, and whenever I went in to pick up a prescription, I caused a minor panic among his staff.

6

When I was 6, nobody told me that fans could buy and wear the jerseys of their favorite athletes. I thought if someone wore a jersey (“JORDAN,” “EWING”), it must be that player. So I saw this tall white guy wearing a Larry Bird Boston Celtics jersey and thought, must be!!!

nope.

(never mind the question of why the real Larry Bird would be walking around at an arcade/kid’s park in Dallas)

7

I have, on several occasions, been mistaken for Colin Mochrie, one of the comedians on Whose Line Is It Anyway?

A few decades ago, I was out walking our dogs, and was asked by a passerby, in all seriousness, if I was Larry Bird. I’m a full foot shorter than Mr. Bird. :wink:

8

You could have used this to effect. Stop by at the counter one day and give a booming ominous lecture about poor productivity, work ethic, etc. but then also announce “promotions” for the staff you liked.

9

In the right light, I look a bit like David Duchovny on one of his off days. Many moons ago, I spent a summer in South Korea… and nearly every day, some stranger would stop me in the street and say, “Mulder!” or “You! X-Files!”

At one point I was on a tourist bus to the Demilitarized Zone, and our guide got on the microphone to inform all the passengers: “We have a celebrity on board today!” She made me stand up and take a bow. (What else could I say but: “The truth is out there!”)

10

My brother Jay lived in a small town with my other brother in Georgia until he died in 2010. About a year later, I went to visit my other brother, and was driving down the small town’s main street when I saw Jay walking.

He didn’t cross directly in front of me, so he wasn’t jaywalking. :laughing:

Anyway, when I got closer, I started seeing the subtle differences, including the way the man was walking. He had a longer stride. But from a distance of 20+ feet, the resemblance was uncanny.

11

I went to a convention where Dr. Demento was going to be, and I dressed up in a tux and top hat. My tux was actually a tan prom tux, and the Doctor only wears black ones, but everybody kept thanking me for the radio show and all the laughs. The people running the convention even confused me with him.

12

My nephew Mike and his wife had gotten divorced. I was at Kroger one day and saw her and Mike from a distance. I thought that was odd. As I got closer, I realized it was not Mike. She introduced me to her new boyfriend (later husband) who looked almost exactly like Mike. And his name was Michael. It was uncanny.

13

I was around 17/18 years old and still living in the small town where I grew up. A woman approached me, addressing me warmly as “Althea”. I am not nor have I ever been called “Althea” I had an obvious stammer then which didn’t help as I explained that she was mistaken. Unfortunately she was having none of it I was this Althea and obviously playing a silly joke on her. We went at least another round before I ran out of politeness and social skills, shouted at her and ran off :smiley:

To this day I still wonder if she was the one messing with me.

14

When I was a teenager, one of my then best friends had a cousin that I saw around now and then with her BF, who was pretty distinctive looking. He was very pale and skinny, with a huge ginger mop of extremely curly hair, and he wore big unfashionable metal-framed glasses. At the time (mid 90s, UK) it was extra unusual to let your hair grow out into an afro style if you were a white man, and it was that sort of tightly-curled ginger, so he was very noticeable.

He was geeky (what a shocker) and we had a brief chat where we got on well.

After a while, I was at my friend’s house, and so was her cousin and her boyfriend. I started chatting to him about geeky stuff (can’t remember what - some movie or something probably), and he knew what I was talking about and we got on well. Then I mentioned something about the year before - or something date-related - and he started to look puzzled.

That’s when my friend noticed me talking to him, rushed over with some excuse and took me away to explain that I’d almost committed a huge faux pas: the cousin’s BF was NOT the same boyfriend I’d met before. He looked exactly the same (even down to the style of glasses), and had the same interests, but they were not the same person. She and the first BF, let’s call him John, had broken up, and now she was seeing Adrian.

My main response was “are you sure?” They were, but only because the second guy was a fair bit shorter (which I hadn’t noticed because he was sitting on a kitchen bar stool), as well as having a different name. They’d all made the same mistake.

I mean, there’s having a type, and there’s only liking doppelgangers.

We lost touch. I wonder if she stayed with the second guy but made him wear lifts, or moved on to a third, or fourth pale-white ginger-fro’d metal-bespectacled geek. She might have had to move to the US to increase her pool of potential beaus.

15

I apparently am an archetype. I’ve lost count of the people who, upon meeting me, turn to their spouse and say “Isn’t he JUST like Wendell back home?”

At a week-long teacher/student conference once, I had numerous students come up to me and start right in with “You were SO right! I confronted my roommate and he totally backed down. Then we went out for a beer. Thank you SO [hug] much!” [hug]

At first, I’d correct them, but since this happened like a dozen times, I started saying “Great, take care of yourself.” [besides, the hugs were nice…]

Well, after five days of this, a fellow teacher made eye contact with me in a crowded seminar, came over and said “Are you… Diggersby?” “Yeah…?” “I’m Doug, and I’ve been getting the second half of your conversations.” “Me too!”

Now, we did look alike; same size (short), physique (slim), haircut, sunburn, and 'stache (hey, it was the 70s). But he had a rural Georgia lilt and I was strictly flat vowel Midwestern.