have you ever really taken violently against some just because

[OwlBarn]

they really look like someone you can't bear?

I knew this man with a really distinctive look (call him John not his real name). He was really professionally abusive and sexually harassing to a friend of mine. He had a reputation of being really handsy and creepy. I've not seen him for well over ten years if not longer.

I've recently met through work another completely unrelated man (call him Matthew -again not his real name). Matthew really looks quite freakily similar to John and also sounds quite like him. He's not exactly his twin but very, very similar - so when I see or hear Matthew, I see and hear John.

I can't bear Matthew because I hate John. I'm finding this quite weird and don't seem to get past it.

Has anyone else had an experience like this? I remember once being vaguely attracted to a man I just met because he looked quite like an ex I had a lot of sexual chemistry with - which I suppose is the opposite of this.

Poor Matthew - who has done nothing wrong - is creeping me out.

A lovely friend of mine has a (totally blameless) son who is the image of a young Vladimir Putin. i know it affects the way I feel about him, but obviously I make every effort not to show it. I found it disturbing even before the terrible events in Ukraine.

For all I know I'm the doppelganger of some other evil person and may have put others off in the past!

Not quite the same as your situation but there is someone at my work who makes my skin crawl, but I can't quite explain why. I confessed this to my team on a work night out once and they all said 'Oh my god, ME TOO.' For some reason, we just all disliked him and found him a bit creepy - not only the women in the team, but both the men in the team too. And yet none of us could think of anything he'd really done to justify our misgivings. He's a bit intense and over-earnest, I suppose, but he's literally never said or done anything inappropriate. When I said 'Poor bloke, he's done nothing wrong' one of my male colleagues said 'I know, but every time I've met anyone else like him, they've been creepy. It's like he's actively chosen to emulate them.'

Obviously that's ridiculous, and none of us would ever be rude to this guy or anything or treat him differently to anyone else in his role. But I absolutely did know what my colleague meant when he said about his look.

>>>A lovely friend of mine has a (totally blameless) son who is the image of a young Vladimir Putin

@CulturePigeon ooof! That's unfortunate. Unless he could pitch up at the real Putin's bank and make a withdrawal!

@10HailMarys I think that's slightly different though isn't it - because if you and someone else find him creepy it's likely there is something in his behaviour that you are picking up on subconsciously and can't quite put your finger on. Like over intense eye contact, odd language choices in speech, body language, social space intrusion and so on - tiny little things that you can't quite spot individually but add up to a creepster.

This is more just how he looks and sounds.

@OwlBarn Yeah, I do get what you mean, I think it's maybe his looks and his demeanour in combination. He's very into yoga and mindfulness and he's quite intense and earnest about it in a way that is absolutely not harmful or unpleasant but which unnerves me because I'm naturally someone who's cynical and flippant. But it's also partly his appearance. He is bald (which is fine in isolation, I don't mind a baldy at all) and has a weirdly spherical head with a very, very neatly trimmed black pointy goatee beard and very neat eyebrows. He always wears polo necks as well. He's like a cross between someone who would facilitate trust exercises on a team building day, and Ming The Merciless from Flash Gordon. Poor fella.

Yes one man I didn't know but had to deal with at work gave me such fear. My heart pounding and my senses all over the place. I felt faint and I just couldn't professionally deal with him at all because my physical instinct was too strong to get away.

It did turn out he was on bail for abusing two 13 year old girls who had lived in his block of flats. But I have dealt with similar before and (if possible) worse criminals than that, over the years. This man was just something else entirely that I've never experienced before. I feel ill just at the thought.

I can’t stand people called Zoe . Goes back to school where two were absolutely awful and I haven’t met a nice one since . It has been a good 15 years since I’ve come across another Zoe but I can bet she’s a complete bitch

I cannot stand to even look at Chris Evans (the actor). I've no idea why. He just makes me feel a bit sick. It's so weird.

Counsellors call it 'transference'. Your brain scrolls through all it's previous encounters and identifies someone with a similarity to the current person, and your experiences with that person subconsciously affect the way you behave with the new person.

I was wary of someone who looked like a friend’s unpleasant ex, but luckily I didn’t have to interact with him much so it didn’t matter.

Years ago there was a young man in the general office at work who was the spitting image of a character who died horribly in a film I’d watched and I could never look at him without feeling a bit distressed.

Im not convinced about trusting my gut reactions to people as others advise. I know that my gut is full of irrational prejudices.

Counsellors call it 'transference'. Your brain scrolls through all it's previous encounters and identifies someone with a similarity to the current person, and your experiences with that person subconsciously affect the way you behave with the new person.

oooo interesting @jgjgjgjgjg ! I did not know this but that makes a lot of sense

@10HailMarys

This is so funny as I was reading your post I got to this bit

a very, very neatly trimmed black pointy goatee beard

and I thought That would be it then! sounds like Ming The Merciless!

.... and then you said
>>>like a cross between someone who would facilitate trust exercises on a team building day, and Ming The Merciless from Flash Gordon

It was like you read my mind as I was reading!

When I started my first job I ended up on the phone a lot to a collaborator I hadn't met. Realised after a while I was really feeling quite fond of him and looked forward to our chats. It was ages before I realised he had an incredibly similar intonation and voice to my ex!!! Gah. Luckily when I met the guy he was about 30 years older than me but I still felt weirdly drawn to him.

Poor Matthew though.

Yep. I've met a few people I absolutely couldn't stand because they reminded me of people I hate and each time, the new people I can't stand have gone on to do horrible things, similar to the original people I disliked.
None of them knew each other.

@OwlBarn Hahahaha! We clearly have the same frame of reference here. Anyone with a Ming the Merciless vibe is definitely a massive wrong'un.

Mine is loud, extroverted women. Reminds me of an aunt who terrorised the family with her toxic opinions on everything when I was a child. She had absolutely no filter and would say the most hurtful spiteful things to your face as well as behind your back.

Unfortunately, I came across two in my school mums group and my reaction on meeting them (the shudders) proved to be correct. Awful women!