Seeing double

I was walking down the street yesterday when my close friend L stepped out of a shop and crossed the road in front of me.   Nothing unusual about that, you may think, except that L doesn't live here, nor work here, nor have any reason to travel 50 miles to come here (except to see me in which case she'd have phoned first.)  See, it wasn't L.  But it looked so much like her that I was very slightly freaked out.  Same lovely face, same curly hair, same height, the same walk even, and dressed in clothes I've seen L wear – brown jacket, jeans, long boots. I must have gawped, transfixed; I know I turned my head to let my eyes follow her as she disappeared behind me, all the while thinking, “Is it? Could it be?”

They say that at any one time everyone has a natural lookalike somewhere – a doppelgänger (from the German 'double-goer').  It seems I've had a few over the years; not that long ago I could rarely go into my nearest town without complete strangers greeting me, waving to me across the road, once even stopping to chat before realising I wasn't who they thought I was.  One time I met a man with his young daughter and noticed that he was looking at me with a somewhat disturbed expression (hey, stop whatever it is you're thinking...).  Then when we talked briefly and he studied me with an even more disconcerting intensity, he explained that I was the spitting image of his little girl's mum. I didn't like to ask if she was still around...but it occurred to me that if she wasn't, then it was no wonder my similar face may have been quite haunting for him.  Another time I met an elderly woman who said I looked just like her daughter and that I even had the same mannerisms.  As I tilted my head to the side (that was one of them) and looked closely at the old lady's eyes and the shape of her face, I found there was a familiarity... just something of my mother in her features; I guess that stacks up.  Was it even possible that somewhere along the line, too long ago to track, we shared some ancestral genes?  Or is it just that there aren't really that many varieties of faces to be shared amongst the entire population – I mean, we all fall into types, don't we?

I just hope I never see my own doppelgänger.  For one thing I imagine it would be totally freaky (for both of us) but there's a whole folklore thing connected to it too – it's meant to be an 'omen of death'! In some traditions, seeing the lookalike of a friend or relative is pretty dodgy too and is supposed to signify bad luck, illness or danger.  I think I'll just text L and check she's ok...

Not exactly a Kinks' soundalike