My Familiar Face

I was sitting on a bench under a tree with my laptop, trying to get some preliminary research done for my first Spanish Lit. class, when she walked by. She did a double take, stopped, turned around, and came up to me. She smiled warmly. I smiled back.

"Queens, right?" she asked.

I was puzzled at first. Then I laughed and shook my head. "No."

Now she looked puzzled, "You never went to The Queens School?" (why do Queens students always say it like that -the Queens school- like going there makes them royalty?)

I shook my head. Nope. I've never even been on the campus.

She said an embarassed sorry and started to walk away. I kinda felt bad (like I shoulda gone to Queens), and shouted after her, "If it's any consolation, this happens all the time."

And it does. Almost every.single.day. Maybe it's my resplendent come-hither-and-talk-to-me smile, maybe it's the homely aura that surrounds me, maybe it's my propensity to smile and wave at random people whether or not I know them... but there's something about me that makes people -lots of people- think they've seen me before, and feel like they just know me from somewhere.

When I first came to UWI, I thought it was funny. But as the years wore on, it got annoying, then frustrating, then, (after I met a coupla these people) disturbing; then the whole thing just became amusing. Everybody seems to know somebody who looks exactly like me.

So I've come to the (somewhat sad) conclusion that my unique face may not be so unique after all. I have a familiar face. And I guess I'll just have to live with it.

Either that, or I could convince myself that all these people want to talk to me and just don't know how else to strike up a convo :-)