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Thinking You Recognise Someone & Then Really Seeing Them

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dharma_choc

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Does anyone else experience this? Let me explain...

I often think I recognise someone in a crowd, but then realise that it isn't them after all. They just have a passing resemblance to the person I thought they were. Its usually someone I haven't seen for years, or very, very rarely see.

Then, usually the same day, I will bump into the person for real. :shock:
 
I've lost count of how many times this has happened to me. It's really strange. I'm sure there are many rational explanations, such as catching a fleeting glimpse of the real person, so they're in your subconscious mind and you're thinking about them when you see someone who looks similar just before you see the real person properly (sorry for the long convoluted sentence there). Or maybe the fact that you see someone silmilar puts that person in the front of your mind so you're more likely to notice them when you do see them. It seems to happen so often though that I don't see how this could explain it every time.
 
Some years ago I had a spell of walking up to complete strangers and greeting them in the belief that they were a relative or friend, as they'd looked just like that person to me. Most emabarrassing. :oops:

Thing was, each of those people died soon afterwards. Only the people I'd thought I was greeting died - being genuinely recognised by me carried no danger.

I am very careful these days and look twice, and once more, before crossing the street to hail an old friend. ;)
 
No offence, but would you mind staying clear of people who look even slightly like me? I'm planning on knocking around for a while yet.
 
escargot1 said:
Some years ago I had a spell of walking up to complete strangers and greeting them in the belief that they were a relative or friend, as they'd looked just like that person to me. Most emabarrassing. :oops:

Thing was, each of those people died soon afterwards. Only the people I'd thought I was greeting died - being genuinely recognised by me carried no danger.

I am very careful these days and look twice, and once more, before crossing the street to hail an old friend. ;)
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Er... If we ever meet, snaily one, maybe just wave at me!
:shock: :p
 
:lol: Yup. I just give a feeble wave these days. Once I jumped off my push-iron in the street and rushed over to say HELLO! to an uncle I'd not seen for a while, and nearly gave a total stranger a heart attack.

Strangely enough, the real uncle died of exactly that, shortly afterwards. In the street.

I hope some mad woman hadn't rushed up to him thinking he was her uncle... :shock:
 
This has happened more times than I can relate, and everyone I know is conscious of the phenomenon too. I think it happens to everyone, but why?!
The strangest case of false recognition I have ever had was a few years ago, when I saw a girl walking across the taxi rank in front of me. She looked just like me for a second- in that second, my brain went "Look! That's you!"
Even though it was an utterly impossible situation, I had been just about to wave and everything! For that split second, I was convinced I had recognised myself across the road.
 
kirmildew said:
This has happened more times than I can relate, and everyone I know is conscious of the phenomenon too. I think it happens to everyone, but why?!
The strangest case of false recognition I have ever had was a few years ago, when I saw a girl walking across the taxi rank in front of me. She looked just like me for a second- in that second, my brain went "Look! That's you!"
Even though it was an utterly impossible situation, I had been just about to wave and everything! For that split second, I was convinced I had recognised myself across the road.
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:shock: Now THAT is strange! :shock:
 
One day I arranged to meet my son in town. I was standing waiting, thinking idle thoughts, when I saw my own face moving towards me... :shock:

I thought, hey, why is MY FACE over there?

It was my son, of course, who at 6' tall, skinny and auburn looks about as different from me as he possibly could do!
Still, for those few seconds, he had MY face. Poor lad. :lol:
 
escargot1 said:
I thought, hey, why is MY FACE over there?

It was my son, of course, who at 6' tall, skinny and auburn looks about as different from me as he possibly could do!
Still, for those few seconds, he had MY face. Poor lad. :lol:
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I've been going through a lot of old photos recently, 30, 40 years old.
I was surprised to see how much I looked like my brother, although at the time we seemed as different as chalk and cheese.
 
Strangely enough yesterday I had another of these experiences, which adds a new twist. It seems even more unusual after posting this post a few days back...

I thought I saw Mike Peters from the FAB 80s band The Alarm. Now, in a small Yorkshire village I doubted it was him, & sure enough some guy (DEFINATELY NOT Mr Peters) gave me funny looks for staring. Fast forward to 2 hours later & I'm in Manchester shopping. Who should I pass coming out of Woolworths- MIKE PETERS :_omg:
 
You've got a stalker. How very 90s! :lol:
 
Reminds me of the old Viz joke:
My wife rang me at work to tell me that the alarm had gone off.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
She replied: "They haven't made a decent record since "68 Guns".
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sunsplash1 said:
Mike Peters! Where was he hiding?
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He may have been in Woolworths, Manchester since making '68 guns' ;) I heard Mike had 'found God'. Perhaps He is in Woolies too?
 
Peripart said:
Reminds me of the old Viz joke:
My wife rang me at work to tell me that the alarm had gone off.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
She replied: "They haven't made a decent record since "68 Guns".
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Ho ho ho- it still makes me laugh :roll:
 
I have the opposite problem, I sometimes fail to recognise people I know, which can be equally embarrassing.
 
Re: Thinking you recognise someone & then really seeing

dharma_choc said:
Does anyone else experience this? Let me explain...

I often think I recognise someone in a crowd, but then realise that it isn't them after all. They just have a passing resemblance to the person I thought they were. Its usually someone I haven't seen for years, or very, very rarely see.

Then, usually the same day, I will bump into the person for real. :shock:
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Hey, This happens to me a lot - usually in EXACTLY the same way as Dharma Choc describes. I thought it was just me................
I would not have had any thoughts about the person whom I THOUGHT I had recognised, prior to my thinking I had recognised them.
 
There used to be a guy who drank in my pub who was the spitting image of a young Mike Peters. I had no idea, being not a big Alarm fan, till I saw a picture and realised they could literally have been twins. He surely cultivated the image, he had the same hairstyle and everything.
I actually quite fancied him until one brief conversation revealed that he thought he was God's gift to the women of the world, and specifically to me if I wanted. I didn't :shock:
 
I was once sitting in a cafe on Great Russell Street (Laaarnden) when I found myself convinced that the bloke sitting with his back to me, slouched over a cup of coffee, was someone I was at university with. This was not someone I'd known very well or particularly liked - in fact I always thought he was a bit of a twat - and up to that point I don't think he had once crossed my mind since last seeing him in the flesh. When he got up to leave he looked nothing at all like the man I'd thought he might be and I couldn't quite work out why I'd thought it might be him. My thoughts were still running along these lines when I stepped out of the cafe and bumped into the bit of a twat I'd mistaken the guy in the cafe for. And I mean literally - I actually walked straight into him. That was quite weird.

I commonly have a similar experience to this kind of pre-recognition thing which is where I get an overpowering feeling that I'm going to see someone I know. If this was on common stamping ground then it wouldn't be worthy of comment but I travel a lot and the feeling tends to come over me before I see an individual in a place I would not normally associate them with.
 
Spookdaddy said:
I commonly have a similar experience to this kind of pre-recognition thing which is where I get an overpowering feeling that I'm going to see someone I know. If this was on common stamping ground then it wouldn't be worthy of comment but I travel a lot and the feeling tends to come over me before I see an individual in a place I would not normally associate them with.
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Yes, good point. It is often more amazing when it is out of the usual area. I have heard from friends about it happening all over the world.

Whilst we are kind of on the subject...
Does anyone else have an 'area of acknowledgement'? Bear with me :roll: The further away from home I get the more inclined I am to acknowledge someone I hardly know. ie a stranger in my hometown I won't nod at; in a nearby city I might say hi; but in a different country I would speak to them, should I bump into them on my travels.
 
This happened to me about 6 weeks ago. I was walking towards a bus station in a town about 5 miles away from where I live, when I saw an old and dear friend. I knew it was him, he lives in the town and I could see his dreadlocks hanging down past his knees, the dreadlocks I had helped 'create' back in the day...

I began grinning and when he had got close enough to me, I stuck my hand out, grabbed and 'squished' his stomach and shouted, "How ya doing mate!!".

Except it wasn't my friend but his doppelganger. Down to the length of the hair, the Trent Reznor-ish nose and the clothes. I could have died but he laughed it off when I explained that I thought he was someone else. My friend is such a distinctive individual it was so strange to look at this guy who really could have been his twin!
 
When I was working at a local pub, many years ago, a lad started work who looked amazingly similar to my brother. I knew it wasn't him, obviously, but the strange thing was, after a few weeks, I actually started to think it was my brother, and that he was playing a trick on me by pretending to be somebody else.

I'm sure that if the two had stood next to each other, the similarity would have been tenuous at best, but whenever I worked with this guy, I had the oddest feeling. The word "uncanny" describes it best.
 
someone recently came up to me in the train station and said "hello beautiful.... oh I though you were someone else" you shouldn't qualify the first statement it it's upsetting to people.
 
My current other half looks so much like a generic version of all my maternal male relatives that they used to wonder if he was actually a mislaid cousin!

He particularly resembles my father and one brother. Brrr.
 
One of my most embarrassing episodes of false recognition was apon arriving off a bus from Ireland about 5.30 in the morning outside Chester train station. If I recall correctly I think I was the only one to disembark there. A male friend named Dave had arranged to meet me and give me a lift to visit some relatives.
As I walked up the dimly lit street I spotted who I thought was my pal Dave. Not only did he have the same sort of build, and stance as Dave, but aside from me he was the only person around. So as far as I knew it was Dave.
Being a bit on the silly side I started to do funny walks, accompanied with double handed waves, (which also doubled as Anklers..) and high pitched "Yoooouuu Hoooo's!"
Which I kept up for the few second walk to where he stood.
It wasn't untill I was within a few feet of him that I realised that it wasn't him, but a bemused looking young man.
Thinking fast, I figured that the only way out from such embarrassment was to carry on waveing and you hooing at the invisible person behind him! Which I kept doing as I past him. Thinking that if was 100% convincing he would have to belive my charade!
By this point feeling more like John Cleese than a sane young lady, I veered across the road to the right and ducked down behind the first parked car that I came across.
Thinking 'Ah, I'm safe now' and enjoying a welcome breather after my performance... and then right on cue, the real Dave's car turned up and stopped in the middle of the street. I peeped above my hiding place to see if it was safe to totter over to Daves car.
The 'false Dave' was still standing outside the station, but he had his back to me. So I seized my chance to run half bent over to my pal Dave's car.
exclaiming ' Quick, drive!' as soon as I'd jumped in.
He knew me well enough to not be startled by my strange behavior!
Thank goodness!... But I sometimes wonder what the 'false Dave' made of it all!
 
He he this thread has made me laugh. I have twice made a real tit of myself by mistaking other people as friends and once I nearly got myself a bit of a towelling.

The first time was about 2 years ago when I was at university. I was walking along down the English corridoor to my class and outside the classroom I was to have my lecture in was a girl that I am good friends with called George. She was crouched down rumaging around in her bag with her bum sticking out. As I was late for class I gave her a swift kick up the bum as I went past which made her fall foward onto all fours and told her to hurry up before ducking through the classroom door. Imagine my suprise when I walked in to see George already seated at a table. God knows who the girl in the corridoor was.

The second time was a bit more worrying. I used to play football with a black bloke called Walter. When he got to about 40 he sufferred a knee injury and had to retire. He also split from the girl he was seeing in the town where I live and eventually we lost touch. However, whenever I venture into Leeds for a night out I invariably bump into him somewhere in one of the nightclubs. Usually see him a couple of times a year - although I havent seen him for a year or so this time. One place that we often bump into each other is at a place called Federation which is actually a night that is run every month. About 9 months ago I was in Federation a little worse for wear when I turned round and spotted my mate Wally stood in a corner talking to some lads. At this stage I should point out that we were good friends and used to take the micky out of each other on a regular basis - especially the colour of each others skin, me being white him being black. I should also point out that Wally is totally bald. So I strolls over to Wally in the corner, making sure I stay out of his line of vision so that I can suprise him. As appraoch him from the left I give him a slap across his bald head and say 'Now then you black bastard'. I was horrified when they guy turned to me and I realised it wasn't Wally. I was even more horrified when I realised I was stood in the middle of a load of huge blaack guys who thought that not only was I racist, but that I was also a cheeky bastard to go with it. I took me a few minutes of frantic explaining before I managed to talk myself out of it. When they finally understood what had gone on they thought it was highly amusing. Although it did cost me about 6 quid for a double vodka and Red Bull in way of an apology. Best 6 quid I ever spent to be fair.
 
I used to see someone at school who I always mistook for my brother from behind. He had the same hair, the same jacket, the same build, and the same body language/walk. I had to double take every time I saw him. Drove me nuts.
 
Funny, this 'false recognition' business must be contagious! And maybe even 'Karmic'!?.. The very next day after posting my 'false Dave' experience, I headed into town on foot and about half way down a side road an elderly lady with white grey hair
who was heading in my direction started waving frantically towards me!
Not recognising her I casually glanced back over my shoulder to see who she must have been waving to, and there was noone (that i could see) there!
As we neared each other (albeit on opposit sides of the road) she definitely seemed to be waving and looking right at me. So to be polite I felt all I could do was smile slightly at sort of everything around me, that way if she really hadn't been waving at me, I wouldn't then be the odd one for smiling at her, without her knowing me!
At some point her look of 'recognition' gradually changed to a level of 'polite human acknowledgement' that was nearer to my own. As like two gormless fools we carried on our merry ways smileing at everything around us. Although I probably still managed to come out of it looking the oddest of the two!
....And then once in town, I recognised who I thought was a familly pal, but as he was meant to be down south at the time, I figured he must have returned early?
But as this guy crossed the road to my side I realised it wasn't him.
Half an hour or so later I was having a well earned coffee break, when my phoned bleeped. ..It was a text from said f'amily pal' saying he was back in town, if I wanted a lift home after doing my errands, as he was back up in town! So it's back to the 'first you see the false one, then you see the real one' phenomena! Strange world!
 
There's a guy I am friends with who I would find very attractive if he wasn't so much like my Dad!
It's not even in his facial features; it's in the way he talks, holds his pint, makes a point, reads the paper, shrugs his jacket on, stands at the bar... In short, every mannerism he has is like a mirror image of my dad's. He talks like him and even has the same pigheaded way of arguing! Even a group of my dad's drinking friends were fooled by seeing this guy from the back, just because of the way he was standing and reading the paper.
It's quite unnerving as he is around ten years younger than my dad and wears a lot of denim. My dad wore a lot of denim through my whole childhood and adolescence, but doesn't any more, so when I go for a drink with this guy it's like drinking with my Dad from years ago as a mate!
 
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