They say everyone has a double or doppelganger. Have you seen yours?

[DanielAvery]

I found an old photo of my mother from when she was about ten years old and we were all immediately struck by how much she looked like my cousin had looked at that age. But it's not genetic, because the cousin in question is my father's brother's daughter, and the two families had no connections at all prior to my parents' marriage.

When I moved away to college, I had seven or eight different people within that first year walk up and start talking to me, thinking I was someone named Russell. After the third or fourth time I was too freaked out to want to find out who this person was or seek him out---now, I wish I had. He might have been able to pass that awful Trig class for me.

[AndreaSoup]

Mine moved in across the street from me when I was in my late teens. It was very creepy. At my dad's funeral, people were paying their respects to her until she told them she was just the neighbor and pointed to me...you know, the one standing by the casket...

[NightBazaar]

I doubt there are many "dopplegangers" in the sense of being truly identical, but there are people with features that may resemble others in rather striking ways. Even identical twins have some differences. I've never come across anyone who strongly resembles me, but when I was a kid, my brother and I were with our mother at an amusement park. While my brother and I were swimming in a lake, our mother struck up an conversation with another woman on a park bench. Turned out that the other woman's son had the same first name as mine and that we were both born on the same day and year. How often does that happen? We had a nice chat for a while, but never met up again.

[ElizaTeal]

Originally Posted by OwlKaMyst

Not a true double, but close enough that someone thought we were twins. Everything about us was the same except our eye color and her nose was more pointed. We did 'know' each other through a mutual friend. We were also only a few months apart in age.
People say I look like Christina Ricci, but I am am older, so she looks like me.
I pull off a great Wednesday Addams for Halloween.

My daughter has encountered a couple close 'doubles'. She goes to school with the current one.

Judging by your profile photo, I'd say you look like Christina Ricci around the eyes, but that is about it.

[pekemom]

Not seeing the person myself, but when I was younger I was called "Carol" (not my real name) by
several strangers at different times and places...I never did meet "Carol" so I don't know if I would
have thought she looked like me.

[Vasily]

i have no idea how many genes are related to facial features, but it's a finite number because there are about 25,000 human genes. Let's say there are 10 genes that control facial features ... that would be 2^10 or 1024 combinations. If it's 20 genes, that would be 2^20 or over a million combinations. My guess is that it's somewhere between those two numbers, but that's just a guess (if you suspect it's infinite or a huge number: how many people on the planet have an 18 inch prehensile nose, or a 6 inch chin that curves out like a Hallowe'en witch? - most likely none, or a small number you can count on one hand). In addition to genetics, there's expression: the way our features turn out is the result of our development in the womb and after, so it's not just the genes. But even with differences in genetic expression, there's only a certain amount of variation you can get given a fixed number of genes and developmental pathways.

But my gut feeling is that if you define "unique facial types" as meaning the majority of people would agree there's a strong resemblance between two faces of that type, there are no more than a few thousand unique facial types. Think of every face you've seen in your life, and every face you've seen second-hand in photographs and art. They fall into certain types. Genetics can only do so much with the material that determines facial features.

So, my argument would be ... I'd be surprised if no one met their double during their lifetimes, or more likely several doubles.

[Mrs. Lindo]

I have never seen my double but, a handful of people have told me that I look like this lady named Lisa. We both work in the same field too.

[Tallysmom]

It just dawned on me -- my older sister and I look alike. I just never thought of someone in my family being a doppleganger...

[Gerania]

No, but she's out there somewhere. Our children are the same age and look alike.

[zenapple]

When I was younger, I was doing college searches. This was just when the Internet was really kicking off their Internet presence. On one university's website I saw a girl who looked exactly like me. Same haircut, same taste in clothing, same smile, everything. My mom came in to my room and said, "Oh, that's a cute photo of you, when did you take it?" I enlarged the photo and told her to look at it and guess. She studied it really hard and still didn't know it wasn't me. When I told her it wasn't me, she was shocked.