How would you react?

[Wintersun9]

DH & I attended a wedding & I felt great in my new outfit. I feel I scrub up well & have what people have always described as a very pretty face. At the wedding I was sitting beside 2 women I didn't know when one of them said to me has anyone ever told you your the double of.......... but in a nice way & her friend nodded, agreed and said I see what you mean. My apparent lookalike is about 20 yrs older than me, has had multiple plastic surgeries and in all honesty looks awful. My heart sank. I didn't reply & went home thinking I look nothing like her, DH agreed. How would you have reacted? Am I right to be upset? I'm over it now but the thought of those women saying I look like this occasionally gets to me. It just felt cruel.

Who's the lookalike?

You can look like someone without looking the same age as them or like you've had plastic surgeries. (I'm not sure what the relevance of that is). Men and women can look like each other, for example a brother and sister, yet this does not mean that they literally look like each other. Of course they will also be very different. Looking like someone also has nothing to do with being as attractive or not as them either. A daughter can be very like her mother, but this does not imply they look like they're the same age. The comment you say was said in a nice way, so I would guess you are feeling a bit insecure about things for whatever reason and your mind has fixed on a perceived negative interpretation but if it was said in a nice way then I doubt it was meant negatively or meant that you therefore looked older than you are or like you've had plastic surgeries or whatever. It doesn't sound like it was cruel so maybe try and focus on potential positive aspects of the comment.

can we please know who the lookalike is?

I remember being at a wedding and someone told a relative they thought she and I looked like twins and that girl was super offended 😞

Ignore OP.
As the saying goes, opinions are like arseholes, everyone has one and they all stink.

It's not a celeb, just someone local & known to both parties although I personally didn't know them themselves. My DH said they need glasses your not even remotely like her even when she was much younger. 🤷‍♀️ I'd like to think they were being nice & ssw something similar but instinctively I know they weren't

Honestly, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought.

Perhaps she meant mannerisms rather than looks. Perhaps she meant "like x in their youth". If I were to say someone looked like Madonna, I would probably be referring to Madonna from the 80s/90s rather than 2023 Madonna as that is when she was most iconic (for me) and where I have a stronger image of her in my mind's eye.

I think it depends on who the double is as to whether or not I'd be offended. Eg. Sandra Bullock is 20 years older than me but I would be overjoyed by a comparison to her!

We haven't seen the person so we can't know if you have any similarity or not. It could be that they know the person much better than you do. You say you don't know them. When you know a person you see expressions and aspects others wouldn't at a glance. It can be the way you move, the way your face shape is. All sorts of things. I've been compared to all sorts of disparate people. Sometimes it'll be some obvious one off feature, hair or something. Other times I'm flummoxed and have no idea. Sometimes I've felt a bit insecure if I've decided it must be something to do with features I might be more insecure about, but that's an internal thing. It doesn't mean that other people meant to make me feel that and it doesn't mean the person I was being compared to isn't an attractive person either.

The fact you've taken this so personally is more of the issue. Sounds like you're very insecure about appearance for some reason. I would take a step back and consider if you're being not very nice about this other woman. Yes we all have insecurities, but it's not great to be thinking about and talking about a complete stranger in a way that is so negative, based purely on appearance and how you feel about yourself. If you knew her you might really like her and not find the comparison so negative at all. Maybe it's just late at night and you're dwelling on perceived negativities. Focus on the fact you did feel great that day and you do think you brush up well. You don't have to look for a negative or assume it was meant meanly.

I should have made this clearer.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with well done plastic surgeries. This woman goes abroad and everyone agrees she's made a mess of herself. This apart, we have absolutely no similarities past or present & all friends agree 🤷‍♀️

I'd have said "God, I hope not. She's got 20 years on me" and watched them squirm.
I don't think anybody should say somebody looks like someone. You just don't know how it is going to make them feel. It's rude and it's rare that it's actually true anyway.

Thanks. We all have insecurities. I've no issue with being compared to people who do have similar features although like you I wouldn't do this to others. This woman has no features that could be described as the same shape etc so it just felt odd & why say this. Im not trying to. Make a big thing if it just interested in opinions

I don't know what people can really say. We can't know if you look like this random other person or not. Your husband and friends say not but you're still fretting about it. In a way you have to choose how you want to react to it. You can take it as not being ill meant. Or take it as being some kind of dig, as you seem determined to take it. But then what? From two random women you don't know and aren't friends or people you're likely to see again, so why bother brooding about it. Might as well take it as not ill meant. To the question of how to react, it wouldn't have been very nice to act indignant or slag off this other person. It's hardly her fault. If you'd tried calling the two women out for making a dig, it would just have looked very over the top or foolish. Ignoring it or moving swiftly on as you did seems a perfectly fine way to react. To brood about it and let it hurt your self esteem afterwards or cause you to question people's motives without evidence is futile and not helpful to moving on from it.

Oh talk about a bloody drip feed

I'd say "Christ! I didn't think I looked THAT bad!"

Thanks for the replies. I can see the majority don't support the fact this hurt. For the record the woman who said this looked like an old witch. Her friend wasn't much better. I feel free to say this after what she said to me. I dont think I'm anything special but as DH who understands me said it's not the comparison that hurt, it was the fact they wanted to bring you down and deliberately try to lower your self esteem. He was right & they didn't succeed.

🤣🤦‍♀️

🔝I'll remember this for the future. It's just what I was looking for. THANKS!

I have absolutely been offended/ flattered when I have been likened to someone famous, who has been distinctly older uglier or more beautiful than me. But at the same time, I sometimes see similarities between people of different races based purely on their profile 🤔, so there's that.

How rude of her