Very few people look like me. A few times in my life I’ve noticed someone who looks almost like me and it’s freaky to see another one of “us.” What about people who have a more “common/standard” appearance than I do (physique/features/hairstyle) - do you see people who look like you all the time, or do you know your own distinctions well enough to realize the other person isn’t identical. If you do see your doppelgangers how does it make you feel? Do you feel a commonality with them? Competition?
I’m a big guy with a beard. There are a lot of big guys with a beard. We don’t look at all alike to each other but all the rest of the world can’t tell us apart.
I never encountered anyone who looks like me. Not my family(I’m adopted) or anyone in my community. I’m pretty. . . different looking (my dear mother used to like to say “unique”). That is until I found my birth family. I look just like bio dad and quite a bit like my half-sister. It was cool / strange to see myself in her face.
On at least three occasions, young children thought I was their mommy, and held their arms out to me. On two of those occasions, they cried as they were carried away from me. (On one of those occasions, the child was carried away by her actual mother.)
I have, on several occasions, met someone who looked a great deal like me. In each case, both of us realized the resemblence, but it was mostly a point of amusement – “my long-lost brother!”
In recent years, I’ve been asked, by strangers, in all seriousness, if I was a particular, moderately-famous comedian (Colin Mochrie). Again, there’s definitely a resemblence there, but it’s just something that amuses me. As far as I know, Mr. Mochrie has not ever been asked if he’s an advertising guy from Chicago.
No, my look is not widely shared. I do have a family resemblance, in that I look exactly like my late father, in face and coloring, except he was obese and I am quite skinny. I was told by my grandmother that I looked exactly like her brother who died very young.
I have had people pointed out or introduced to me as looking like me. I could understand the generalities, but naturally could also see all of the distinctions.
When I worked for the food stamp office, ALL of my co-workers looked like me and visa-versa.
EX: A client comes in, sees me for the first time (according to the notes) and tells me that I told them X,Y or Z, which was always incorrect. While they were swearing they were right, I will check the notes to find that a tall, dark-haired male co-worker correctly told them A,B or C.
I look just like my caricature. Big bald guy with a white beard. Oddly enough there was a light skinned black in my HS class who didn’t resemble me at all and I have my HS yearbook to prove it. Nephew of Marian Anderson. But by the time he was a well-know orchestra leader, several people noticed that we really looked a like, especially in a photo where the skin color wasn’t readily apparent. Big bald guy with a white hair. When he guest conducted the Montreal Symphony and I went, I got a could odd looks from others in the audience.
Someone in a Paris cafe sat down and told me how much I resembled Allen Ginsburg. I don’t see that at all.
I used to live in a tourist town and once I went away for a few weeks. When I got back, my friends said “Hey, there’s a guy here that looks just like you, same geek walk and everything”. When they pointed him out to me, even I could see the resemblance.
In the old AFL, there was a TV commentator (Elmer Angsman) whose voice sounded just like mine.
But in school, my teachers could never remember my name, which seemed like an asset.
Back when I, y’know, met strangers, I would get told I looked like famous people once in a while. But never the same people. And not terribly similar-looking people beyond some white-guy basics. Examples: David Bowie, the singer from Spacehog , Brad Pitt (!), Ronald Reagan (?), the guy who plays Sheldon on Big Bang Theory, Jimmy Stewart.
By the way, the teenager who told me I looked like Reagan was looking at a photo of Reagan taken during his presidency when he said it. I am 45.
It’s been kind of amusing but also disconcerting. When someone asks “you know who you look like?” I have no idea what answer they expect. And I really wonder what the common factor is among all these dudes I supposedly look like — is it anything beyond “white guy, on the skinny side, no beard?”
I have met a couple of guys who thought they had that generic look. They would get mistaken for other people all the time, when meeting someone for the first time that person would think they’d met before, and then they’d often hear the names of well known people they were supposed to resemble. I think both of them had Ronald Reagan on the list. One of them I thought I had met before, possibly had, but he did seem to remind of a lot of different people.
So that’s not exactly the same as the ‘big guy with beard’ thing, but it still shows people don’t look at us with that much detail. I think there are certain characteristics that tend to score high with the pattern recognition process our brains use to recognize people. You might have several of those characteristics and trigger a lot of different associations. A beard could be the kind of characteristic that just defines a whole sub-class of faces to people.
I reckon few people would answer this question affirmatively. We are hard-wired to think of ourselves as unique. This is apparent for instance when pointing out to people that they look “just like” each other. Objections fly instantly, close family members excluded.
Years ago I went to an event for English speakers in Zurich. Walked into the shop and the guy behind the counter greeted me, “Hi Dawn”.
My name is not Dawn. And I’ve never met her. But according to the guy behind the counter, we look a lot alike.
Growing up, my best friend and I were often told we look quite similar. We styled our hair the same way (long with bangs), wore glasses and had similar clothing (t-shirt and jeans). Don’t think that is still the case.
You know that famous black guy, bald, glasses, goatee? I look like him. Doesn’t matter which one, apparently I look like all of them, from Van Jones on CNN to Christian Cooper (of Central Park Karen fame). I can’t even complain, really - it’s a pretty generic look I’ve gone for. A woman at Kroger linked arms and started strolling along the aisle with me - until she heard her husband burst out laughing; in the age of masks you’ve got to cut some slack.
The hilarious thing is when relatives exclaim that I look like my maternal grandfather (and I really do) - everyone’s always so surprised, like they didn’t know we’re related.
, Brad Pitt (!), Ronald Reagan (?), the guy who plays Sheldon on Big Bang Theory, Jimmy Stewart.