I always enjoy reading about people meeting their doppelgangers. I have met two of mine.
The first time, I was in college. I was with friends in a bar in Ithaca and the bar tender stopped in front of me, “Whoa! Like is that your brother over there?” I think, at that point, I had a brother on three different continents, so I mumbled something like, “No, can’t be any of my brothers….” Then I stopped because there was this guy who looked just like me, but way taller and male.
The second doppelganger was better. I was working in Spain and I saw an ad in the newspaper for a research assistant for an Australian game show.
I wore a navy suit to work most days, so on the day of my interview I only had to stick a resume in my bag. The meeting was in one of the old buildings on the fancy Serrano Street in Madrid. I walked up the marble stairs and stopped in front of the floor to ceiling quilted door. I rang the door-bell and the woman who answered the door took a step back, not to let me in, but in surprise.
“You…oh, no, wait, you’re here for an interview…?” she floundered, plainly flustered as well.
“Yes, I have a one o’clock interview scheduled.” I answered, trying to make her more comfortable.
She asked me to have a seat while she told her boss I had arrived. I was admiring the pattern of the parquet when two sets of high heels came careening to a stop in front of me. One set stopped so fast they left a black streak on the light parquet.
I looked up and there was a quick intake of breath, the assistant looked at her boss in an I-told-you-so-way and smugly walked away.
The Australian woman who was interviewing me was about eight inches taller, but her face was as nearly identical to mine as a face can be. Her hair was the same ash blonde; her blue eyes the same shape. Heck, her glasses were my glasses, the horn-rimmed deals. The creepiest thing is that we were wearing the same navy blue suit from the same boutique up the street.
She clearly knew we looked alike, but never mentioned it as she explained how the initial research for the pilot of the Australian game show being made for Spain would be broken down into research categories. I listened with one ear. I wrote research for an investment fund, so I could surely do research for a game show, but could I get this alternate-me to recognize me?
There was a two foot stack of resumes on her desk.
“All for this one job?” I asked.
“I can NOT believe the response!” She enthused, “Y’know it’ll be really hard to decide between the candidates, so someone will really have to stand out.”
Obviously, I did not stand out.