more doppelgangers

My doppelgangers are out in force. In the last two days, two different people have told me that I look like someone they know. The first was a woman on the plane back to Budapest. She was a nice enough lady, from Oakland in fact, going to Budapest with her grown son who lives in Maine. Anyway, we struck up a conversation and she remarked that I look like someone she knows. (For clarification, she wasn't talking to her son on the flight, because they were not seated together since the flight was full.)

Yesterday, I was at a client office in Budapest and one of the people I met asked me if we had met before. I told him probably not and explained where I had worked before. He said maybe we had met in Houston, but it was probably someone else.

Hopefully, my doppelgangers are using their powers for good. I have received many comments from people over the years that I either look like someone they know or that they think they have met me before, which usually means that they met someone who looks like me. I find it so strange because I have never met anyone who looks like me.

There are various reasons for this. First, I see my face nearly every day and like to think I have a good handle on what I look like. We are individuals and we should generally like that individuality. I do. For instance, I've been told that I look like my brother, a comment I don't really agree with. I think we look like brothers, but I don't think we look all that similar if that makes sense. Then again, much like how I see my own face every day, I saw his face every day for many years and have a pretty good handle on not only what he looks like, but also how he does and does not look like me. I'm not sure if other people are trying to find something that connects me to someone or somewhere or something that they already know. This seems to lead to grasping for finding a person from their past history who looks like me. Or maybe it's just a polite comment, but it seems like a strange way to make polite conversation.

Another reason is that I strive for a generic and somewhat timeless look. For those of you who know me, especially if you've ever seen my closet, I own a lot of dark blue shirts along with a good number of gray and black ones. I very rarely dress in a way that would draw attention to me from someone walking on the street. I've had the same haircut for some number of years and try to look more or less the same all the time. I'm not sure how old I look to other people, but I do strive for a timeless quality where I'll look essentially the same 10 years from now. There seem to be a couple competing factors when people try to guess my age. At work, most of my work peers are older than me by a couple years so they might be inclined to think I am older. Same for clients who are almost always older and generally expect me to probably be older than I am so when I meet people, they might tend to think I am closer to their age than I really am. I have not quite figured out if people think I look older or younger than I actually am. Context and setting seem to be such big parts of that.

Does anyone else get lots of comments about looking like other people? Better yet, if you have a photo of anyone who looks like me, then please send it. Or if you know anyone who looks like me, take their photo (say it's for research) and send it to me.