I was definitely a kid playing some kind of Hero’s Quest fantasy board game when I learned the term doppelgänger. The concept that there might be someone out there that looked exactly like me was kinda neat but also scary. Neat because in my youth, rarely ever meeting anyone who even looked like me in my varying (we moved around a lot) white small town existence, it became an intriguing thought that maybe my twin was on the other side of the world. As I got older and traveled to Southern California and elsewhere, then it became odd because when I met other people who looked a little like me, I rarely felt any connection to them. I never even met another person sharing my namesake until I was in my late twenties. I decided it was cool to be so unique. It seemed silly, almost boring, that there were so many Jennifers, Amys, Michaels & Jims in the universe (no offense). A guy in college alleged that his ex-girlfriend in high school was named Chantal but that was weird in of itself since he seemed to be attracted to me as if he was destined to only fall for my namesake.
And of course, playing the ever popular celebrity look-alike game was just a total let down. I’d met a girl who was the near spitting image of a young Sandra Bullock and a guy that could totally double for Jet Li. But when people would venture to tell me who I looked like, they would say Lucy Liu or whoever the most famous Asian actress was of the era. Later in life, at my local pool hall, that at the time I had been visiting regularly for almost ten years, multiple guys would call me by the name of the only other Asian woman regular patron. This would occur on a random yet disturbingly recurring basis. Once again, we look nothing alike. She was tall, fashionable, wore glasses and was way less socially awkward than I am. Truly there is no mistaking us. And regardless of the inherent flattery from being compared to an attractive celebrity or acquaintance, one cannot help but feel like a blank clonal android entity that others customize based on their experience versus my own being.
But people don’t truly see other people until they have a conversation or share a meal together or some kind of other neuron fusing experience. We need visceral connections to solidify the details of another human. To level up out of a sea of faces and become the person whose name finally sticks, something deeper has to click. Alas, people tend to see me as generic Asian girl or woman until they learn something else that unlocks the door. It’s disheartening but totally true. It makes one feel invisible but only for one’s particular racial profiling which is a very bizarre yet American experience.
“The truth is, she’s a weirdo. Just like you were. Are. A glorious, perfectly weird weirdo. Like all kids before they forget how to be exactly how weird they really are. Into whatever they’re into, pure. Before knowing. Before they learn from others how to act. Before they learn they are Asian, or Black, or Brown, or White. Before they learn that all the things they are and about all the things they will never be.” ― Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown
