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Have You Got A Double?

Spudrick68

Justified & Ancient
Joined
Jun 8, 2008
Messages
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My dad has kept a picture from a national paper from a few years ago. It showed Britney Spears visiting some college in America. In the background is a student, who looks exactly like I did when I was in my 20's. He even stood in the same manner and hooked his thumbs into his front pockets.

I have to say, its really quite creepy and am glad I haven't met my double in the flesh.
 
Not a Doppelganger. Just someone who seems to be your double who you have either encountered yourself or who lives in the same locality or works somewhere. I have got one apparently who lives in a village some way outside the town. Never ever seen her and even when I change hairstyles or whatever people still seem to mistake her for me.l haven't heard anything now for a couple of years but I would love to meet her as even Hubby mistook her for me once. It was many years ago and I still chuckle at the look on his face when he dashed home and I was there.
 
Before I changed my hairstyle, there was someone round town who several people mistook for me. They often spotted her in Costa, from the street. I eventually spotted her myself. Superficially we looked similar, but she was a lot shorter than me. Not so similar that either of us did a double take when we passed each other.
 
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It seems to have dried up these days (perhaps like myself) but a couple of years ago and for a long time I appeared to have multiple doubles in the same town. I assume they were numerous rather than the one person because on the occassions a name was used it was seldom the same one. The resemblance to several of them clearly went beyond a vague outline as several times people - particularly staff in shops - addressed me as though they personally knew me, asking if id moved house or how the non existent kids are. In a bar on one occasion a girl excitedly hugged me as "Mark" and seemed quite unsure i wasn't lying to her when i denied being him, checking with her friends. The closest i got to identifying one of my army of duplicates was when a man in my local supermarket tried to address me as someone he knew...for once i seized the opportunity to ask him about the person he thought i was. It was a deaf taxi driver who shopped in the same supermarket apparently. Which suddenly made sense of the checkout girl who i'd previously concluded must be deaf herself the way she always mouthed silently to me with a caring expression....it was now obvious she thought i was the deaf one.
 
It seems to have dried up these days (perhaps like myself) but a couple of years ago and for a long time I appeared to have multiple doubles in the same town. I assume they were numerous rather than the one person because on the occassions a name was used it was seldom the same one. The resemblance to several of them clearly went beyond a vague outline as several times people - particularly staff in shops - addressed me as though they personally knew me, asking if id moved house or how the non existent kids are. In a bar on one occasion a girl excitedly hugged me as "Mark" and seemed quite unsure i wasn't lying to her when i denied being him, checking with her friends. The closest i got to identifying one of my army of duplicates was when a man in my local supermarket tried to address me as someone he knew...for once i seized the opportunity to ask him about the person he thought i was. It was a deaf taxi driver who shopped in the same supermarket apparently. Which suddenly made sense of the checkout girl who i'd previously concluded must be deaf herself the way she always mouthed silently to me with a caring expression....it was now obvious she thought i was the deaf one.

There's a film in there somewhere.

I often get told that my personality reminds people of a friend of theirs. Although I thought I have quite an acidic sense of humour and a particular way of speaking and expressing myself, apparently I'm woefully generic :mcoat:
 
I've heard a few people remark over the years that they had seen someone who looked exactly like me -- different places and years apart. I had fun with one named "Chester W. Monday," though. Periodically I would apply for jobs at the University of Tulsa. The people at the Human Resources department would always greet me with happy faces -- they were always glad to see "Chester W. Monday." In this olden time of hand-written job applications, sometimes they would start my application -- under Chester's name! -- before I even sat down.

I never met Chester, but in the Internet age he became an alter ego on my web-site (i.e., "I" have conversations with "Chester"). Recently Chester has been a major character in a couple of my novels.:friends:
 
These days of Artificial intelligence and photo (facial) recognition, there should be some software (perhaps Facebook centric) that can find a close match of your likeness with someone else.
Anyone know if there is an app for this ?
 
When I lived in a small town in Somerset, apparently there was a lady who was my double. People would often tell me they'd seen her (we were distinguishable by the fact that she had long hair while mine was a bob, and I worked in an office whilst she kept goats). To my knowledge, we never met, although she was pointed out to me from a car as I drove by her - where I just saw a normal 'woman' type woman, some resemblence in face shape but not enough to make me squeal the car around and go and accost her.

My theory is that people's brains are lazy. They put me in the 'short, round-faced' bracket, and any woman who came vaguely close was my 'double'. I sometimes do it with men 'mid twenties, sort-of beard, short hair' is practically all of my customers, and can make for some amusing conversational mistakes...
 
I think peoples brains ( and mine) are quite lazy too. I am terrible with names and have to have descriptions, where they go, how I know them, who they bother with and any other helpful pointers. What drives me mad is Hubby coming home from somewhere and saying "I've just seen thingy...you know...got a red car...has a limp...got a beard ( or something similar to this). The guessing game can go on for ages and the worst one is "Guess who is dead?" he does it every time as he is hopeless with names too. I am rather poor sighted and don't wear my glasses as I should. The amount of times I have warmly greeted a complete stranger only to then realise it wasn't who I thought it was is so embarrassing. My sister told me a while back there was a guy in the town who was the double of Hubby. I didn't believe her until I saw him myself and yes he was very very similar even the way he smiled and waved at people. I kept staring at him as he made his way up the street it was well weird. No idea who he is and apparently he frequents the local Golf Club (it's somewhere where Hubby wouldn't go). We are seeking clues about him now.
 
This thread reminds me of one on clones a couple of years ago, and of the probability of recognizing your own double:

One thing that has always bothered me about stories of doppelgangers/fetches/android duplicates/clones is, someone is minding their own business, when suddenly they encounter a person who they immediately realize *gasp* "looked exactly like me!"

I think I could walk by someone who looked exactly like me, wearing the exact same clothing down to the mustard stain on my shirt from my lunchtime hamburger, and not bat an eye. Do people check themselves so constantly in the mirror they know precisely what they look like moment to moment?
 
This thread reminds me of one on clones a couple of years ago, and of the probability of recognizing your own double:

Ooh, interesting point. When I imagine myself, it's often not exactly like how I look in the mirror - so I probably wouldn't recognise my own doppelganger. I suppose it's a bit like when someone says "you look like celebrity X" and you say - "really?!" in an either highly flattered or, more likely, highly offended tone.
 
These days of Artificial intelligence and photo (facial) recognition, there should be some software (perhaps Facebook centric) that can find a close match of your likeness with someone else.
Anyone know if there is an app for this ?

There are several. My wife used one a few years ago. To her great amusement it matched me (then late fifties, Grade 3 hair, crab fishing off Blakeney pier) to Shirley Temple!

Cue numerous Airplane! references...

maximus otter
 
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Just watched the latest episode of Australian Gogglebox this evening and one snippet was of an English show of which the premise was to find people who looked alike, not doppelgangers, just physically similar.
Apparently, there are websites out there dedicated to finding your double (or at least a reasonable resemblance) somewhere out there in the big, bad world. I'm not certain what purpose this serves, aside from a laugh, but the ability to do so is there if you wish it.
Before hitting ''Post reply'' I entered ''find my double'' into Google and lots of pages offer this service. Take your pick.
 
Just watched the latest episode of Australian Gogglebox this evening and one snippet was of an English show of which the premise was to find people who looked alike, not doppelgangers, just physically similar.
Apparently, there are websites out there dedicated to finding your double (or at least a reasonable resemblance) somewhere out there in the big, bad world. I'm not certain what purpose this serves, aside from a laugh, but the ability to do so is there if you wish it.
Before hitting ''Post reply'' I entered ''find my double'' into Google and lots of pages offer this service. Take your pick.

I'm not even going to look. I've just eaten...
 
Mine seems to live in Wales somewhere.
1 : I was with my wife and children in Tenby and went to look at a pub menu, walking through a little seating area out front to do so.
There were 3 or 4 old men sat having a beer, and as i walked past one looked up and said "Where have you been ? haven't seen you for ages " and they all started to ask me questions as if we had known each other for years.
I made my excuses and left, more amused than puzzled.
2 : I was in Pembroke working, and a local traveller/boxer/ ex army lad had committed suicide, and the funeral had been that day.
The police had advised local bars to only let locals in and to bring in their tables and chairs in case of trouble.
That evening i was in a local club (Paddles, not the most sophisticated of venues) with 2 or 3 work mates when someone i'd never met before came up and asked what i thought of the service. They had seen me there but hadn't had a chance to talk.
Over the course of the evening several other people came up to me, told me how they had seen me at the service, and asked my thoughts.
I just nodded and mumbled something about how moving it had been.
I often wonder what would have happened if the person they thought i was turned up, he must have been in town, it would have been interesting, or turned into a brawl.
 
Dick Turpin at least you wouldn't be subjected to shouts of "I'M FREEE!!" :dunno: Think it is time I changed my hair colour again...
 
As a jazz piano fan I remember innocently browsing the racks of my local HMV back in the mid 90s and being confronted by this:



Basically at the time I looked pretty much exactly like Bill Evans does in this photo.

Sadly I couldn't play piano like him. Still can't...
 
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As a jazz piano fan I remember innocently browsing the racks of my local HMV back in the mid 90s and being confronted by this:

View attachment 16105

Basically at the time I looked pretty much exactly like Bill Evans does in this photo.

Sadly I couldn't play piano like him. Still can't...
We've heard you play. Pretty good.
 
An addition to this thread...
Travelling through Indonesia in the late 70's with my father, we were staying in a rather nice hotel on the island of Bali. This was in the day before tourism truly overtook the island and you actually saw more Balinese than drunken Australians getting pissed on Bintang.
We popped into the hotels bar one evening before dinner for a quiet beer and one of the barmen approached my father asking him if he could pay his bar tab from the previous night. We'd not been onto the bar the night before and he explained as much.
Some people we had started talking to around the pool mentioned that they'd called out to my father as he walked past them earlier in the day and he'd simply ignored them. It wasn't until a day or so later that I saw this man walking by the pool who was the spitting image of my dad. Same height, body shape, hairstyle and moustache. The resemblance was uncanny, so much so that for a brief moment, I even thought it was my father. What differentiated them, was that the way this guy walked was different. He had a more precise, clipped way of walking. Many years on, I still remember this incident quite distinctly.
 
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My ex neighbour and I looked very alike. Both locals (which isn't very usual round here) and both from farming families so no doubt we were actually related somewhere way back.

An ex of mine (from 200 miles away) once rang me a while after we split, to say he'd met a woman at a party he found fascinating , so chatted up then went out with for a while, all because she was my absolute doppelganger. I can get how former neighbour and I might look quite alike given the limited gene pool of East Riding farmers for centuries... But a randomer, totally the other end of the country?
 
I had one in the town I used to live in & I believe her name was 'Stacey' people always used to shout "Stacey!" If I was across the street from them & wave. I can remember one bloke chasing me shouting Stacey and I didn't want to embarrass him by shouting "I'm not stacey!" So I kept running hahaha . He caught up with me eventually and when he saw me face to face close up he apologised that he had got the wrong person. Me & my friends often laugh about it now 10 years later.
 
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