I go through phases (about a week every second month maybe?) where almost everyone I see reminds me of someone else.
I can watch a film and find myself saying 10 times during the film “S/he is the image of insert-name!”. The person I am being strongly reminded of can be another famous person, or someone I know. This even occurs between genders, a male actor may remind me strongly of some female. mrsIteki’s reaction is usually “yeah, a bit” (of course sometimes someone really does have very similar looks to somone else and then she agrees more emphatically). I don’t do this particularly much when not going through one of these “phases”.
Since I understand that there are mental disorders that can cause one to be unable to recognise faces, I was wondering if there is a similar but opposite phenomenon whereby one “hyper-recognises” people?
Speaking personally… In me, this trait increases with age…because I know so many more people than I did when young… I think it’s a perfectly normal thing; let’s face it, everyone does look like someone else.
Just yesterday, I was in a store, where the clerk looked disturbingly like Jean Claude Van Damme! I mentioned it, and he said I was the fourth person in a week to have said so. So it affects more of us than just you and me!
It would begin to approach “mental illness” status if it interfered with your life. If you honestly couldn’t tell if that was your next-door neighbor or Colin Powell… (Unless, of course, Colin Powell is your n.d.n…) If you began to have anxieties about mistaking one person for another… If you find yourself making obviously absurd comparisons… (Is that Colin Powell, or Phyllis Diller…?)
It could be an idosincracy, but it’s not a “disorder”.
In order for a behaviour or thought pattern to be considered “disordered” there has to be some detriment to the person experiencing the event. That is, you the experiencer have to be having some sort of disruption to your life because of the behaviour - poor work performance, trouble with interpersonal relationships, negative self-feelings, etc.
I’m assuming that you don’t accost strangers shouting “Oh my God! You look just like Aunt Mable!!”
Should you start doing this, you may have a problem. In the mean time, don’t worry about it.
I do this all the time too, with people often calling me crazy for thinking person X looks like person Y. But I think its what Guinastasia said - I’m pretty observant and can pick out those subtle similaritites between different mannerisms.
