How good are you at identifying yourself? Can you immediately pick out yourself in a large group photo? If a stranger is going to meet you in a crowded train station, how would you describe your looks? What are your most significant features? If none are significant, like being seven feet tall, you’ll probably blend in with the crowd. A large white carnation or a yellow derby might be necessary.
Mother seals can spot their offspring on enormous beaches, packed flipper to flipper with pups. And even the pups can pick out their Moms. At great distances, their personal calls will help. Unfortunately for us, “Yoohoo!” is not unique enough.
We’re not that good at describing others either. Surround a newborn baby with kinfolk and they will argue about whom he or she resembles. “Anyone can see he’s the spitting image of Uncle Oscar. Look at those big ears. Oscar has radar ears!”…..”She looks a lot light Aunt Agnes. See how her nose slants down, but turns left at the bottom?…. Finally, they’ll settle on the baby’s’s looks but agree he or she will eventually need plastic surgery on various body parts.
A more curious thing is that most of us don’t know exactly what we look like and we’re perfectly willing to throw out all the evidence and pretend we resemble someone else. Very often a famous someone else.
We fail to realize the movie we’ve just watched, starring our “almost twin” was shot after her or his four-hour session in the make-up department. But what do movie stars look like each morning when crawling out of bed and before checking in at the studio’s parts department to pick up their hair, teeth, moustaches, eyebrows and lifts?
P.S. Stop looking for your absolutely perfect duplicate, your doppelganger. Experts say the odds for that are a trillion to one. You might have some close look-alikes though who probably share a common ancestor. I’ve walked into a couple of pubs for the first time and have the bartender ask, “So you want the usual?” My unknown “cousins” had apparently run up pretty big bar bills and I had to prove this was my very first day in town.
Imagine That 