Hello Stranger

There are a number of people I Hello but I don’t know how I know them. One man asked me recently how we knew each other, and neither of us actually knew. Reflecting, I now know that I don’t know some of them. Some of them just remind me of others. They are doppelgängers of previous people. Mistaken familiar faces.

   After I Hello another random, R asks ‘How do you know them?’

   ‘I don’t know how I know them. Possibly I don’t know them but I’ve been Helloing them for so long I now know them, you know.’

  I remember years ago going up and Helloing someone in a pub convinced they were someone I knew and they weren’t. I don’t have bad eyesight. I wasn’t drunk (well maybe a little tipsy). I confess I’m not the most visual person, embarrassingly remembering names better than faces at work. But still! The awful thing was my friend was called ‘Old Paul’ (He was all of 36) so I went up to this man and said ‘Hello Old Paul’. He gave me a look of confusion and hurt.

   ‘But you’re Old Paul!’

   ‘No I’m not.’

   ‘You are! Come and join us.’

   ‘No, I’m really not. Look, here is my driver’s license.’

   Poor old Not Old Paul. Nobody likes to be called Old. And poor old Old Paul, what a cruel name for someone not yet forty. 

   The other proper doppelgänger I met was not my Grandmother. She was not Nanny because Nanny was dead. She looked exactly like her, except she had straight hair and a green dress, whereas my Nanny had a perm and wore a maroon dress. I couldn’t talk to her properly. She wasn’t a ghost because her name was Mrs Simons and she was sitting in a deck chair at the top of my friend’s garden. She still made me feel unheimlich with her bright green eyes and quiet grace. 

  All I can conclude is there are lots of not yous and not mes happily going about life not knowing that they are "nots". And if they are our "nots" then we are their "nots". If I see them I will remember to Hello them.