Know Your Doppelgänger

June 12, 2014 9:42 AM

Know Your Double: A doppelgänger field guide by John Martz (previously).
posted by homunculus (43 comments total)

Double
posted by vorpal bunny at 9:48 AM on June 12, 2014 [32 favorites]

^ subtle, but delicious.
posted by komara at 9:49 AM on June 12, 2014

If you have sex with your doppleganger, would it be a doppelgangbang?
posted by jonmc at 9:49 AM on June 12, 2014 [3 favorites]

no homunculus?
posted by joelf at 9:50 AM on June 12, 2014

Funny, I read this last night and marked it for posting.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:52 AM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

I liked this! "Reflection" was pretty disturbing.
posted by sweetkid at 9:52 AM on June 12, 2014

It's always disappointing when you meet your alternate universe twin and he's the good, successful one.

Oh well *dumps body in lake*
posted by The Whelk at 10:00 AM on June 12, 2014 [16 favorites]

no homunculus?

I am a unique and special snowflake.
posted by homunculus at 10:01 AM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

If you have sex with your doppleganger, would it be a doppelgangbang?

Thanks to the Beebs, I've contemplated the ramifications. Synopsis: it would be complicated.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 10:06 AM on June 12, 2014

I have a friend who lives about 15 miles from me. About 5-6 times we've discovered we've bought the identical product at the same stores. Yeah, sometimes it's something at Trader Joe's, but sometime it's Persian baba ganoush from the same specialty shop. We are each other's "shop-elgangers".
posted by benito.strauss at 10:07 AM on June 12, 2014 [4 favorites]

If you have the goatee, well...
posted by bonehead at 10:10 AM on June 12, 2014

Needs more details on the temporal paradox options. Am I my own grandfather, or am I my own grandson?
posted by blue_beetle at 10:11 AM on June 12, 2014

I'm an incredible generic-looking white chick, always mistaken for someone's cousin or whatever, and I choose to believe that they're all my Player 2s (Player 2-∞).
posted by troika at 10:12 AM on June 12, 2014

Funny, I read this last night and marked it for posting.

Hey, me too!
posted by psoas at 10:13 AM on June 12, 2014

I have a unique look due to a very rare medical issue, but when I worked as a cashier I would occasionally get customers who expressed surprise that I didn't work "at the hospital" anymore. I would explain that I had never worked at the hospital (or any hospital) and did not know the person in question. They were usually incredulous and one person argued with me that I was lying and I really was the other person!

This was years ago and I regret never going to that hospital and trying to track that person down.
posted by desjardins at 10:13 AM on June 12, 2014

My dad has a doppelganger who works in a similar field AND lives in the same general neighborhood. They are regularly mistaken for each other -- including by me, at times when I know my dad is out of the country. Similar age, dental work, favored hats, everything.

We refer to them simply as Dad and Other Dad.
posted by Madamina at 10:23 AM on June 12, 2014 [5 favorites]

People tell me I have a "doppelganger" from time to time and when they show me the person I don't think they look anything like me - they usually are also vaguely Asian looking and that's it.
posted by sweetkid at 10:26 AM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

I once had an acquaintance who told me her best friend from back home was a perfect double for me. I wish we could have met, because if we had the same sense of humor as she said we did, we'd have had a ball impersonating each other and messing with people.
posted by homunculus at 10:28 AM on June 12, 2014

Heh, I remember having an idle drunk conversation about whether you would do your doppelganger and then my roommate (who has a twin) walked in, listened for 10 seconds and declared us all fucking disgusting.
posted by 256 at 10:58 AM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'd just want to know how it looks from that angle myself.
posted by The Whelk at 10:59 AM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

No, homunculus.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 11:10 AM on June 12, 2014

When I lived in Santa Barbara, I evidently had a doppelganger who was a massive jerk. I occasionally while walking along would be accosted by annoyed strangers, and I would have to take ten minutes or so to explain that I wasn't the same person. It was both eerie and really annoying.
posted by happyroach at 11:32 AM on June 12, 2014

I have met my doppelgangers girlfriend.
This is a fact we both learnt after she kissed and hugged me.
It was awkward.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 11:45 AM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

I was at my local Pho joint some years back when my own doppelganger came in. Same face, same hair cut the same way, everything. It was alarming, I literally stopped in mid sentence and stared open mouthed as he went and picked up the same order I usually get. The only differences were that he was three inches taller than me, and about twenty pounds lighter, the sonuvabitch. Still weirds me out to this day.

Also, having sex with your doppelganger makes you a doppelbanger. This is established fact.
posted by FatherDagon at 11:45 AM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

My cousin's husband is the dead ringer for a neighbor who also happens to be a local republican politician. To top it off the guy's kids go to the same school and they sometimes car pool. At least once a week at drop off he has to endure either a lefty berating him or a "fellow traveler" telling him what a great job he's doing sticking it to big government and those goddamn immigrants and such until he finally, gently informs them that they've got the wrong guy...

...again.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 12:08 PM on June 12, 2014

Also, having sex with your doppelganger makes you a doppelbanger. This is established fact.

It is known.
posted by sfkiddo at 12:10 PM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

What if it's just a quick hand job?
posted by Pudhoho at 12:26 PM on June 12, 2014

What if it's just a quick hand job?

I think that's a different phenomenon.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 12:40 PM on June 12, 2014

They missed identical cousin. Or is that just a sub-class of twin?
posted by mhum at 3:09 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

More things to worry about!
posted by QueerAngel28 at 4:49 PM on June 12, 2014

(I'm a tiny bit disappointed that this wasn't about the Gerry Anderson movie from the late sixties, Doppelgänger, aka Journey to the Far Side of the Sun in the US, aka Unfall im Weltraum in Germany, which combines a really stupid plot with some truly excellent model work.)
posted by effbot at 4:56 PM on June 12, 2014

They come in twos. You come in twos. You and you.

Kill your double.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 5:08 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

They missed identical cousin. Or is that just a sub-class of twin?

Implausible Trope, perhaps
posted by rifflesby at 6:16 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

rifflesby: "Implausible Trope, perhaps"

Ah, could be. But, I interpreted that one as more of a The Prince and the Pauper situation.
posted by mhum at 6:32 PM on June 12, 2014

Idaho, 1996. The Native American woman behind the gas station counter says, "Hi, John." I'm not John, but my dad is, so I at least responded in the negative. She told me I have a doppelganger in Salt Lake city. In fact, she continues, we all come in threes; except twins, who come in fives. She's a twin. She also talks about my aura. (, and how I should go east of Grand Teton Park and just listen to the silence. We did so, and a mountain lion started tracking me. Weird stuff.)
posted by notsnot at 8:08 PM on June 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

About a thousand years ago, when I was in college, I was suddenly being accused of snubbing my friends while on campus. Despite my not having been on campus on the days in question.

So one night I'm at the former grocery store that had been converted into a bar and dance floor. I'm standing in line to get a drink and look off to my left. There's my doppelganger. He looks at me. This goes on for about three seconds, and then we both casually turn away. After that, no one ever again spoke of seeing me in places I hadn't been, and I never saw him again.
posted by bryon at 10:09 PM on June 12, 2014 [2 favorites]

Anyone in this thread who has mentioned having seen their own doppelganger: I have loaded up your profile to see if you have a picture set, and if so, to check and make sure you're not MY doppelganger.

So far we're good.

but I'm watching you.

.... always watching.
posted by komara at 7:07 AM on June 13, 2014

There's more than one of everything
posted by The Whelk at 7:49 AM on June 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

Missing a Malkovich Malkovich entry.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:59 PM on June 13, 2014 [2 favorites]

You have to wonder, when you get messages like that, whether they're working for you or for the lion.
posted by glasseyes at 4:00 PM on June 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

Addendum to this comment: today my brother posted a very sincere and heartfelt Father's Day tribute to our dad on Facebook.

WITH A PHOTO OF OTHER DAD.
posted by Madamina at 1:08 PM on June 15, 2014 [6 favorites]

We refer to them simply as Dad and Other Dad

One of those men desperately needs to die his hair black and grow a goatee.
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 12:29 PM on June 16, 2014

Dad does actually grow a goatee on occasion. I would wager he's the evil one, yes sirree.
posted by Madamina at 6:35 PM on June 16, 2014