Remember the guy who touched my hair? I’m affectionately referring to him as Stalker Dude over on the twittah. Anyway, things are going along as usual. Stalker Dude is definitely getting more comfortable making chit chat with me, as expected considering he was comfortable touching me. He still brings me my mail and stops by just to say hi and eavesdrop on my conversations. Oh! We are both from the Midwest! What a coincidence! *eyeroll*
The other day Stalker Dude stopped by and noticed a picture on my desk (yes, I keep personal mementos on my desk). It was the picture of me, CaliSlim and Rehab at the wedding last fall. He said something to the effect of, “oh, I knew you were Beyonce!” After I finished rolling my eyes back to the front of my head I replied a curt “not hardly” and pretended to be busy doing something else.
Then I had a flashback…
It was the early 80s. Vanessa Williams had just been crowned Miss America, but had yet to be dethroned by scandal. I was about 8 or 9 and a student at my all-white elementary school. It was standardized testing week and I was bent over my test paper probably realizing I didn’t have a future in anything remotely academically challenging, when the principal came over and whispered something in my ear.
I think you look just like Vanessa Williams.
Now, I’m sure she thought she was giving me the greatest compliment in the world, but I was really offended. You see, I might not have been able to do word problems for shit, but I was smart enough to know that me and Vanessa Williams beared no resemblence whatsoever. Especially considering I was, like, 8, and she was a grown woman!
Big Nose and Bucked Tooth Babs
I remember not liking the Principal after that. I always thought (though not in these words) that she was full of shit. I mean, I get that it was the early 80s and small town Ohio and so she probably didn’t have a frame of reference. So the first attractive Black woman she knew made her think we could bond. I dunno, but what I do know is we didn’t look alike. At all.
Have you ever been told you look like someone when you know you do not? Do you find that it happens more with people of a different race?
When I was a kid, people told me I looked like Keisha Knight Pulliam. We both had cheeks and ponytails but we didn’t look a like. Even if I dropped 50 pounds I would not look like her today either. I love Rudy, tho.
I got the exact same thing, especially from white folks. I think people just assumed I had ponytails, jacked up teeth, and was black, that I looked like her. Rudy was probably their only frame of reference at that time.
I can’t remember anybody saying I looked like anybody famous. However, I kept hearing I looked like this girl from another school and I actually did. This lady once told me I could model and I knew,that was a lie! You were a cute kid, she was probably trying to be uplifting? Maybe, Iono. Dude is probably crushing on you and is just being obnoxious, tho not on purpose.
When I first started in the unit I work in now almost 10 years ago, there was only one other black female in the area of the state we work in. We look nothing alike, I am at least 4 inches taller than her, she has light skin, I have dark skin, I was much thinner than I am now and she was somewhat thick at that time. What I found interesting was when we would go to conferences in other parts of the state for meetings with our co-workers that work in other areas, they would either call me her name or call her my name. These are not people that we worked with on a daily basis, because we do a lot of independent work and mostly we communicate with one another via email, but clearly all that these people associated us both with was being one of the black girls that work in Houston. LOL and they never really paid enough attention to make a distinction as to who was who. She and I used to be so amazed & how consistently this occurred, I mean several different people would constantly mix us up !
I get mistaken for “that guy all” the time”, strangers tell me “don’t I know you” all the time. I guess I just have that generic white-bread ordinary guy look about me. My wife says I look like Robert Redford, or at least I did when I was younger; (Babs, since you’ve seen me in person, so don’t laugh too hard at this). Oh and don’t be to hard on the hair grabber, when the three of you walked into to meet me I thought for a moment (albeit brief) that you all looked like “En Vogue” (minus the mean one Maxine Jones); mind you that this may have just been bad lighting in the restaurant and the fact that I’m become as blind as a bat in my old age, but never the less you all did strut in like stars:)
En Vogue?!?!?
maybe “SWV”, it was dark and I really can’t see.
Hahaha! I’m tall so I call Cindy.
I have been told I look like Emilio Estevez, which I always took as an insult because he is not even the cute of that family, not that any of them are cute now!
Between you and Robert Redford up there…I’m giggling at my male readers!
I used to be told constantly that I looked like Patti LaBelle or Loretta Devine. Loretta because of my mannerisms. I never understood the Patti Patti reference. It was my aunt who initially told me I reminded her of Patti. Friends would always say Loretta Devine. I don’t think I look like either of them.
Someone one once told me I looked like Sade. Yeah, as beautiful as she is I couldn’t even be flattered cuz naw, i’on look like her.
A lady that I worked with about 6 or so years ago told me daily for about 3 weeks how much I look like Laila Ali and one day she even went as far as to call me Laila. She thought it was funny, but I wasn’t feelin it. I mean, not only do I not look like her, but that is not my name, so we are not even going to pretend that that is ok.
These stories are hilarious! Where have I been!?!