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It happens all the time. Complete strangers say "Hi" to me as if they knew me. Often people will even approach me and say something like "Hi, Steve".
Me: "Sorry, I'm not Steve; you must be mistaking me for someone else"
Then they will look at me with a suspicious look as if they're convinced I really am Steve and I'm trying to pull their leg.
Why does this happen all the time? Maybe my face is very non-descript and makes people think they've seen it before?
On the other hand, I tend to do very well with women. We tend to like people of the opposite sex who somehow make us feel that we met them in a previous life. Maybe this strange phenomenon is playing in my favor?
Is there any explanation for this? (No, I'm not going to post a picture of myself)
hahaha well your encounters seem nice.... I was standing outside a newsagents near where I used to live.. and my husband had gone in to buy a newpaper... he said the lady at the counter told the other assistant that I was a notorious shoplifter, hahaha. and my hubby didnt even talk up for me ..
I used to get this all the time until very recently. I do not know the cause either, and I wish I knew! One time in particular was in my second year of college when I was in band with a young man who several people believed was my brother. I do not have a brother, plus this guy was kind of a jerk. A girl who never talked to me ever said "isn't your brother in the same section as you?" Even after I told her we are not related, she still referred to us as brother and sister when speaking to other people. Really? I would lie about that? That situation was the most irritating, but the others weren't bad, sometimes funny. Like one time I was applying for a job and an older Latino guy there asked if I used to live in Arizona. I told him I've never been to that state and he replied, "ask your daddy if he's been to Arizona."
As for feeling like you knew someone in a previous life, I think that's cool. I used to not believe in that stuff, now I do... I've gotten that feeling one time but I couldn't act on that "connection."
For several years I had a lot of people mistaking me for someone else and they all called me "Carol". I swear I wasn't having blackouts. No alternate identities, here. Even shopkeepers who I corrected about my name several times still called me Carol.
It happened less frequently after I moved to another state, but I still occasionally get a stranger calling me Carol.
When I look at my face in the mirror, I can't see that I look like a Carol. Well, I don't look like I belong to the name my parents gave me, either, but no reason to think I look like a Carol.
I can't think of any famous TV character named Carol and certainly not one I look like.
Another related thing that keeps happening to me regularly:
I wear a suit for work Mondays to Thursdays. Fridays it's casual Friday. When I see a colleague in the corridor on a Friday and say "Hi" they stare blankly at my face for a few seconds until they finally recognize me and say "Oh, sorry, I recognize you in casual clothes". You've been staring at my face for seconds, the same face you see every day and you don't recognize me just because I'm not wearing a tie?
This blog post and many of the comments are similar to my experience: You Look Like Someone I Know | The Other Courtney Everyone thinks they know me, or have met me before or they tell me I look exactly like somebody they know. Sometimes they will show me a picture of the person they think I look like and I do see the resemblance. One time the picture seriously looked like my identical twin but with darker hair. I really do look like a lot of people.
It's good to know I'm not alone. I think what the girl says about micro-expressions sounds interesting. perhaps our faces are more expressive than usual. Actually in that picture, something about her expresson reminded me of Lisa Edelstein of House MD fame even though they don't actually look at all like each other.
A couple of things I've just remembered:
1) When visiting my Mom recently she told me I look different every time she sees me, even though there are not significant changes in haircut, weight or facial hair.
2) When I'm abroad (in a white majority country) locals take me for another local and they ask me for directions. Of course this could be because of my attitude, even when I'm travelling for pleasure I don't dress or act like a tourist, but I've been actually told several times by natives "You look [insert local nationality here]"
This blog post and many of the comments are similar to my experience: You Look Like Someone I Know | The Other Courtney Everyone thinks they know me, or have met me before or they tell me I look exactly like somebody they know. Sometimes they will show me a picture of the person they think I look like and I do see the resemblance. One time the picture seriously looked like my identical twin but with darker hair. I really do look like a lot of people.
I've had the exact same experience all my life. It is a joke with my husband and me whenever I am in a public place how many people will think I am someone they know.
We came to the conclusion it is about my "averageness". I am average height and weight, brown hair, brown eyes, average features, etc. I think the averageness can visually morph into a lot of different looks.
This has happened to me once in a while and it was always no big deal. However, I had a very bizarre experience of mistaken identity a few years ago.
I went to a new book club for couples, without my husband, as he was unable to attend. This club had been going on for a few years, but I had just recently been invited to it. It was held at the home of one of the couples. The hostess was introducing me to the group when one of the men (let's call him Dave) rushed up to me and gave me a big hug and a kiss. I was startled and looked at him in confusion. He said, "Susan, I'm so glad to see you!!" Another man also said, "Yeah, long time no see." Everyone was looking at us. I smiled and told them that my name was not Susan and that we had never met. Both men looked at me like they weren't sure whether to believe me or not. Dave said, "OK," but seemed like he didn't believe me.
A few minutes later, a woman came up to me and started asking me about myself, and how I had found out about the book club. It turns out that the person who invited me was a mutual friend of her husband. When I asked who her husband was, it turned out that he was Dave. She talked to me about everything under the sun, and suggested I joined her mom's group. I agreed, as I was new to the area at the time, and wanted to meet people. When I noticed that she was following me around with her eyes the whole night, I realized that she thought there was something going on between me and her husband.
For the next three weeks, she called me every other day around 7:30am, with nothing much to say about the mom's group--or about anything else. I spoke to our mutual friend, and he explained that she had a history of her husband stepping out on her and thought I was his latest conquest.
Last edited by Sage 80; 03-29-2014 at 09:41 AM..
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