# You ever see an old picture of you, and you didn't recognize you? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 15, 2013, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-ever-see-an-old-picture-of-you-and-you-didnt-recognize-you/653053 "2013-03-15T22:15:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-ever-see-an-old-picture-of-you-and-you-didnt-recognize-you/653053/1 "2013-03-15T22:15:18Z")
The other day a friend sent me a picture of me and another friend from college days. My best guess is somewhere in 1978-80. So it’s at least 32 years old. I recognized the other guy instantly, but I had to really study my image for a while before I could convince myself that the young guy with shoulder length hair and no discernible belly was me. And after I emailed it to my sister, her response was to ask which one was me. She didn’t recognize me either. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-ever-see-an-old-picture-of-you-and-you-didnt-recognize-you/653053/2 "2013-03-15T22:53:22Z")
It happens even with my current pictures. But I’m afraid it only shows I’m such a fuck-up that I can’t even be my own doppelgänger ---
**Author:** ![midnight-dreary](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@midnight-dreary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/midnight-dreary)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-ever-see-an-old-picture-of-you-and-you-didnt-recognize-you/653053/3 "2013-03-15T23:29:56Z")
It happens when I look in the mirror sometimes, nothing as bad as you, but sometimes I’ll look in the mirror, and go ‘oh, I look really different today.’ ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-ever-see-an-old-picture-of-you-and-you-didnt-recognize-you/653053/4 "2013-03-15T23:30:59Z")
Only once; it was a picture of me as a child, only a one-quarter profile, and my hair was bleached blonde from the sun. It was the hair color that confused me; I didn’t know that it used to get that light in the summertime. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2013, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-ever-see-an-old-picture-of-you-and-you-didnt-recognize-you/653053/5 "2013-03-15T23:39:29Z")
When I was 15, I applied for a job with a YMCA summer camp, and they requested a current picture with the application. I went to the photo booth at Woolworth’s, and sat for a strip of head shots. None of them looked like me; I thought they were pictures of someone who used the machine before me. The hair was right, and the age was right, but the eyes and mouth looked foreign to me. ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-ever-see-an-old-picture-of-you-and-you-didnt-recognize-you/653053/6 "2013-03-16T00:22:12Z")
I’m the opposite. To myself, at least, I look exactly the same in every picture. I have a picture sitting on my desk right now of me at age 3, and it’s like looking in a mirror. I used to show people two pictures of myself, one at age 8 and the other at age 35, where my hair had the identical style and the images were eerily similar. I’m also often recognized by people from my distant past. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-ever-see-an-old-picture-of-you-and-you-didnt-recognize-you/653053/7 "2013-03-16T01:31:59Z")
Nope. Even pics from my early childhood look like me. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-ever-see-an-old-picture-of-you-and-you-didnt-recognize-you/653053/8 "2013-03-16T02:04:55Z")
My brothers and I go through the reverse of this when we look at pictures from our childhood. I’m sure that “that one” is me, but my brother is sure it’s him. We can’t both be right. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-ever-see-an-old-picture-of-you-and-you-didnt-recognize-you/653053/9 "2013-03-16T02:42:37Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > It happens even with my current pictures. But I’m afraid it only shows I’m such a fuck-up that I can’t even be my own doppelgänger This. I suck at recognizing people, including myself. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-ever-see-an-old-picture-of-you-and-you-didnt-recognize-you/653053/10 "2013-03-16T04:28:04Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > It happens even with my current pictures. Happened to me once. There’s a wide shot of me in which I’m not wearing glasses and it took me a while to figure out who that was. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-ever-see-an-old-picture-of-you-and-you-didnt-recognize-you/653053/11 "2013-03-16T05:10:32Z")
. . . . . . . . . . . I had a mullet. ---
**Author:** ![Tapiotar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3be4f8/32.png) [@Tapiotar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapiotar)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-ever-see-an-old-picture-of-you-and-you-didnt-recognize-you/653053/12 "2013-03-16T11:03:08Z")
No, the pictures from the distant past all look like “me”. It’s the pictures from the last 20 years that look like someone else. But people I haven’t seen in 40 years still recognize me, so there must still be some essential “me-ness” coming through the changes in surface appearance wrought by time. ---
**Author:** ![Donna\_Lange](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Donna\_Lange](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donna_Lange)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-ever-see-an-old-picture-of-you-and-you-didnt-recognize-you/653053/13 "2013-03-16T12:34:56Z")
Before 12 my sister and I are exactly the same and I can’t usually tell which is which. After I’ve had my physical look since 12, and have always looked kinda young. Fine with me, I love getting carded! ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2013, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-ever-see-an-old-picture-of-you-and-you-didnt-recognize-you/653053/14 "2013-03-16T12:45:59Z")
I have no idea what the second sentence in the previous post means 😕 It would happen to my Dad and his eldest brother, not as “that can’t be me” but because they looked so similar that you can’t tell which childhood picture is whose if there is no indication of size. People confused them all their lives. On the opposite end of the spectrum, recently I cut my hair from mid-back to a pixie. My sister in law stared at me, went to the corkboard where my mother keeps a bunch of pics she likes, pulled down an ID pic from when I was 3 and said “she looks _exactly the same_!” ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2013, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-ever-see-an-old-picture-of-you-and-you-didnt-recognize-you/653053/15 "2013-03-18T11:48:57Z")
Not only do I look the same my whole life, (accounting for changes in hair styles) my son until around age 5 looked just like me at the same age. A woman who was friends with my cousin when I was 2 saw my parents walking with my son at age two and she looked at me and said “That can’t be anyone in the world _except_ **Mona Lisa Simpson** ’s child!” My son has now got the lean and lanky build of his bio dad (and a bit of my brother) but his face is still very similar to mine, so much so that his “tells” when he is joking, fibbing, sad, upset or frustrated are the same as mine. To anyone who knows me, he’s an open book. Or conversely: my husband actually asked me a few months ago what was confusing me, because he recognized the expression from my son’s face! ---
**Author:** ![sandra\_nz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@sandra\_nz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sandra_nz)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2013, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-ever-see-an-old-picture-of-you-and-you-didnt-recognize-you/653053/16 "2013-03-18T12:17:19Z")
I don’t tend to come across childhood photos that I haven’t already seen, so I’m not sure if I’d have difficulty identifying myself. I always feel a bit sad when I look at childhood/adolescent photos of myself. I was led to believe I was grossly overweight and unattractive and I look back on those photos and I was so damned cute! ---
**Author:** ![pudytat72](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@pudytat72](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pudytat72)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-ever-see-an-old-picture-of-you-and-you-didnt-recognize-you/653053/17 "2013-03-20T00:31:24Z")
I had the opposite happen. I saw a family photo. And I was in that photo. But I had no memory of that event AT ALL. “WTF ! I was there? I don’t remember that at all!” Like seeing a photo of yourself standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, and knowing that you had NEVER been to FRANCE. (and I wasn’t drunk or on drugs) ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-ever-see-an-old-picture-of-you-and-you-didnt-recognize-you/653053/18 "2013-03-20T00:40:48Z")
> [@pudytat72](#): > > … (and I wasn’t drunk or on drugs) You can’t be sure of that. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-ever-see-an-old-picture-of-you-and-you-didnt-recognize-you/653053/19 "2013-03-20T01:48:50Z")
Yes, It was a picture of me at age 6. My hair was in pigtails, so it looked like it was very short, like a boy’s. Except for the background it was identical to a picture of my son at the same age. I guess I have strong genes. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2013, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-ever-see-an-old-picture-of-you-and-you-didnt-recognize-you/653053/20 "2013-03-20T01:56:58Z")
Folks who see me after not having done so for a long time tend to tell me that I hardly change (influence from my mother’s genetics, she comes from a line of people who age very well). But a friend from college did dig up a pic of around age 20-21 in what I suppose must have been my Che Guevara Period where I had to look and look and look some more to recognize myself… [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-ever-see-an-old-picture-of-you-and-you-didnt-recognize-you/653053.md?page=2)