Cape Town - Like most people, I hate going to the dentist.
It’s not so much the drilling or the sucky mouth thing or the fire injections. It’s because when I’m lying with my mouth open, my tongue lolling around like a liquored-up lizard, I always feel as though I’m in trouble; like I’ve done something wrong – scrubbed too hard, drunk too much tea, forgotten to floss, eaten too much fruit.
However, after much searching, I recently found a dentist I like. Not only is she gentle, cheap and efficient, but she looks a lot like me. Okay, so her hair is more Roxette than mine and she wears a lot of yellow, but when I’m lying on the chair with the Kreepy Krauly stuck to my tongue, I look at her face and it’s like I’m drilling my own teeth. It’s strangely comforting.
The concept of doppelgängers – or unrelated people who look the same – has been in the news recently after three friends in Britain took a bet to find their twin online. They posted photographs of themselves to a site called Twin Strangers, which hooks up doppelgängers from across the world, and waited to see who would be matched up first. After just 16 days, Irish student Niamh Geaney found her twin in Karen Branigan. The resemblance is astounding – both have the same brunette hair, the same big blue eyes, the same smile and the same-shaped face. They are said to have become firm friends.
The interesting thing about doppelgängers is that how we perceive ourselves is not necessarily how others perceive us. For all I know, the dentist looks nothing like me and I just fancy myself as a blue-eyed tooth torturer.
My photographer friend Dave Southwood worked on a project called People Who Other People Think Look Like Me. He tasked friends with finding people who were his double. The resultant exhibition comprised portraits of strangers who generally looked nothing like Dave. Yes, some had hints of ginger and similar features, but their overall appearance didn’t quite match up.
In my early 20s – before the internet was properly born – I had an e-mail liaison with an American poet. After a few weeks of lyrical exchanges, he wanted to know what I looked like. At the time, I had a heavy blonde fringe and was fond of pairing silk with Doc Martens.
I had a fixed idea of what I looked like. “Kind of like Cybill Shepherd,” I told him. He was very impressed. When we eventually swopped photographs, he wrote back: “You’re more David Bowie than Cybill. Kind of androgynous. It’s cool!”
I think I told him he looked like a moose.
Over the years, there have been other worrying comparisons: Queen Elizabeth, Paula Yates, that woman married to Sting, Johnny Rotten, Andy Warhol and Vivienne Westwood (when she was young and didn’t have beige teeth). It would seem I appear extremely British, faintly addicted to drugs, massively anarchic and possibly into tantric sex.
Granted, I was once told at a party that I looked like Uma Thurman, and I clung to that all night, flicking my hair and wiggling my butt. But when I found the woman who had said it kneeling in front of the toilet, wailing about tequila and the cruelty of the world, I knew it was all about the nose (and not the bass, or the hair, or the nice eyes, or the long neck).
Some people believe there are at least seven people in the world who look exactly the same. A project by Canadian photographer Francois Brunelle would seem to confirm there are at least two. He took 200 portraits of strangers who could easily be mistaken for twins. It’s a beautiful thing: unconnected yet hauntingly similar people, some with their arms wrapped around each other.
Besides the dentist, I met my true doppelgänger about 20 years ago. I was at Treasure Beach, on the Bluff in Durban, with my then-boyfriend. We’d spent the day swimming and body-surfing. The afternoon light was golden. As we trudged up the stairs to the car park, a couple approached us, making their way down to the sand. As they got closer, all four of us froze.
There I was. There she was. She was wearing the same black costume, had the same hair, same face, same nose, same eyes, same mouth. The man looked at me, looked at his companion, pointed at us and said something in German. We all burst out laughing and shook our heads. The woman and I stared at each other and exchanged shy smiles. I watched her walk down the stairs. She kept turning to look at me. It was like seeing myself heading off for another swim.
I have a dentist appointment next week. I will try hard not to seem weird. When my twin leans in with a needle, I will try to not stare at her and imagine she also likes long walks in the woods. But I might wear something yellow; to perfect the reflection and make the injections feel even gentler.
Cape Argus