About six or seven years ago, I encountered another instance of being mistaken for someone else. This isn’t the first time, nor will it be the last; it’s a pattern I’ve noticed throughout my adult life, beginning around the age of 20. Occasionally, it feels like a peculiar quirk of my appearance, my behavior, or perhaps a combination of both.
Most often, this phenomenon occurs when someone approaches me, only to realize moments later that I’m not the person they thought I was. However, there have been a few more memorable instances. One such moment happened while I was waiting for a friend at a local pub. After a few minutes, a woman I’d never seen before sat down across from me and said, “Well?” To which I replied, “Well, what?”
“What do you have to say for yourself?” she shot back, clearly irked.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t know who you are,” I responded.
She laughed in disbelief and said, “This is a new one!” After I explained that I was definitely not who she thought I was, she finally seemed to comprehend the situation. We both laughed, but the look in her eyes was a mixture of confusion and intrigue that felt surreal.
Perhaps the most bizarre incident occurred when I ran into a close friend from my building. She greeted me and then asked, “Did you make it to your meeting on Monday?” I was taken aback and explained that I hadn’t had any meeting. “Oh, but you did!” she insisted, adamant that she had seen me on Oxford Street that day. I argued that I hadn’t even been in town, but she was convinced. They had chatted for a solid five minutes, and she claimed I seemed nervous.
In short, my friend had a conversation with someone who looked so much like me that they convincingly passed as me. While the simplest explanation might be that she was mistaken, I can’t help but wonder about the possibilities.
The most dramatic example of my doppelgänger experiences occurred while I was working in a university bookstore. There was a guy who would come in just to stare at me; it was so pronounced that my coworkers joked about his apparent crush. But honestly, it was unsettling. He would find excuses to drop by and buy things, but he never spoke to me.
One night, while I was alone at the counter, he walked in again. He lingered, looking at the books before finally approaching me. “Hey,” he said sheepishly.
“Hey,” I replied.
“I come in here a lot, you know why?”
I shook my head, unsure of where this was going.
“To look at you.” My heart sank.
Then he quickly added, “No, no, it’s not like that. I’m from Iraq. I grew up there.”
“Really?” I replied, still confused.
“Yeah, with my older brother. He was a dentist, the Robin Hood of dentists! He’d treat the poor for free and charge the rich!” We shared a laugh, but then his expression shifted to one of profound sadness.
“I never saw him again,” he said, looking straight into my eyes. “You really look like my brother.”
I don’t recall my exact reaction, but I remember awkwardly shaking his hand and expressing my sorrow for his loss. He smiled through watery eyes and left, never to return. My colleague, who had witnessed the exchange, stood in stunned silence as we watched him walk away.
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In summary, my life has been punctuated by strange encounters where I’ve been mistaken for others. Whether it’s casual mix-ups or deeply emotional moments, these experiences have shaped my understanding of identity in unexpected ways.