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Original poster

Have you ever been mistaken for someone else?

43 replies

SnickettyLemon · 15/04/2021 20:20

I had a rather upsetting incident some years ago. A new girl had started my DD's school and I thought I recognised her mother from a weekend performing arts group I had attended 20 odd years previously. Whenever I tried to catch her eye she seemed to avoid me. Eventually I managed to stop her and asked if she was ' Janet Smith '( obviously not her real name) she said she was, and when I asked if she remembered me she replied that unfortunately she did and they were not good memories. I was surprised as I recalled that we had been good pals and I assumed she had enjoyed the classes. She replied that I had been a bully, and had made her life a misery. Again I was shocked as I had been a 'goody goody at school and would hardly say boo to a goose. This was the reason my parents had sent me to drama classes to help with my confidence. She started to say that I had intimidated her during inter-school sports matches. Well anyone who knows me would confirm that I had no more chance of being picked to represent my school in any sport as I would to play football for England. So I told her this and said she must be mistaken. She refused to believe me. By this point I was nearly in tears and just managed to mutter that I had been about to say I had remembered her from the drama school. She then questioned how I knew about that, so I told her facts about plays we had done and funny things that had happened. She obviously then realised that she had made a mistake confusing me with someone else. She apologised and we had a hug. I still wonder if by then she had told any of the other mums that I had bullied her. Sorry for long thread, but I feel better after sharing this.

OP posts:
autumnboys · 16/04/2021 07:17

I work with someone who is around the same age as me. We both have curly hair. Hers is much much curlier than mine and she always wears it up, I never wear mine up. Yet there’s something about us both being mid forties women with curly/curlyish hair. We get mistaken for one another a fair amount.

Original poster
SnickettyLemon · 16/04/2021 07:43

Some good stories here, I also once got asked if I was " That woman off The Bill," I have no idea who they meant as I didn't watch it.

OP posts:
HoxtonBonnet · 16/04/2021 07:45

I was once approached in the pub and asked if I was Sophie Ellis Baxter! This was some years ago - there would be no confusion now!Grin

Silkiescats · 16/04/2021 07:47

I also had a colleague who a guy came up and said you look identical to your colleague though obviously you are much younger than her. I'm actually the older one, and the guys I worked with kept teasing her about it.

Probably the most disturbing one was when I was about to go on maternity leave and one of the young guys I worked with showed a photo of a pregnant model in a swimsuit and said he thought it was me. Easter Smile Tbf she did look similar but he got a lot of flak from the guys about why he was looking for pregnant women in swimsuits.

WestendVBroadway · 21/04/2021 20:36

I am often mistaken for my (older) sister, not a big problem, however I was not best pleased to be mistaken for my Auntie.

AnyFucker · 21/04/2021 20:40

Yes, for a bloke SadBlush

Original poster
SnickettyLemon · 21/04/2021 20:50

I wouldn't have minded so much if she had actually mistaken me for someone who she felt positive about, rather than thinking I was somebody who made her life a misery.

OP posts:
DenisetheMenace · 21/04/2021 20:52

Many years ago, I was sometimes mistaken for the actress/model in a Volkswagen ad, where she leaves everything behind but her fur coat and her VW, Paula someone?

Damnloginpopup · 21/04/2021 21:00

Brian Blessed.

Lockdown has done me no favours Grin

YolandiFuckinVisser · 21/04/2021 21:04

No, but I once met a man in a pub who I was convinced was Big Cook from Big Cook Little Cook. He denied it.

WestendVBroadway · 21/04/2021 21:17

@Damnloginpopup

Brian Blessed.

Lockdown has done me no favours Grin

Was it the voice, or your looks Confused
Damnloginpopup · 21/04/2021 22:10

The hair 😁

Ithinkyoullbejustfine · 21/04/2021 22:40

I’ve not been mistaken for someone but I did have a weird experience at university.

Years before going to university while I was still in high school there was a girl in my year group, let’s call her Eleanor Brown. Similar name in terms of being quite a common one and not particularly unusual. She had a very distinctive face and manner.

Eleanor Brown left before the end of high school and we didn’t keep in touch.

Fast forward a few years and I turn up to freshers week at university. I’m living in block 1 of halls of residence. Block 2 was joined to Block 1 by a small corridor. Naturally we all started mingling over freshers week.

Now there was a girl in Block 2 called Eleanor Brown who LOOKED IDENTICAL to Eleanor Brown who I had been at school with. I asked her if she was Eleanor Brown from XYZ High School. She denied all knowledge of it and didn’t know who I was at all but interestingly enough she was from the same area as the high school. This carried on good naturedly for the first term as I was adamant it was definitely her... she kept saying it wasn’t but the likeness and general way about her was such an uncanny likeness!

I didn’t think much of it after that first term but a few years later when social media became a thing I looked her up and there it was - Eleanor Brown, same uni as me listed in the same year and the same high school in her bio?!?! Just really weird!!

Awwlookatmybabyspider · 21/04/2021 22:50

@Yolandi. I read that first as big cock.BlushGrin

Gertie75 · 21/04/2021 22:52

Rowan Atkinson talked about this on the Jonathan Ross show, it's worth a look on YouTube.

JamesMiddletonsMarshmallows · 21/04/2021 22:58

Someone who was my doppelgänger appeared on the front page of our locals newspaper having been on trial for abusing her daughter in the most horrific way. Four people rang me saying "you have GOT to see the front page of the paper". She was my absolute double right down to having the same slightly drooped left eyelid and a mole on her cheek, the same as me. It was extraordinary.

Because the trial was such big local news, she was on the front page with different photos over a few days and whilst people who knew me (this was before I even had kids) knew it wasn't me I got stared at for the rest of the week, given dirty looks and one woman in Tesco called me a dirty fucking nonce. I wore sunglasses (it was winter) for ages after that!

PlanterGents · 21/04/2021 22:58

My H looks like Ralph Fiennes. They’re almost identical. Except H is late 20’s. Fiennes is now 60(1)?!

I look like (20lb heavier) Meghan Markle, so I get told. I look nothing like her really, but if she pulls a certain face I see myself completely

JamesMiddletonsMarshmallows · 21/04/2021 22:59

Oh and this woman was actually remanded in custody so wasn't even out in public but I don't think everyone knew that

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