I haven’t figured out why, but over the years (years!), I’ve found myself, on an alarmingly regular basis, asked if I am someone I am not, assumed to be a frequent visitor at places I rarely visit, and told the entirety of life stories. People seem to think they know me.

Is it perhaps that I’m average? I’m average height, average (well, in the US) build, I don’t dress particularly flashily, and I really don’t look interesting. I smile more than people should, and make eye contact with strangers, but I also have a relatively innocuous “American girl” pattern to my speech. Do people just map all other “average” girls they know onto me, thereby recognizing me as someone they know?

I have people at whole foods who I don’t think I’ve ever talked to, but will chill outside with me on my way home from shopping. They tell me I haven’t been shopping in awhile (I usually haven’t), and ask about how I am, and then launch into their life dreams stories. I have acquaintances there too, who I do know, with whom I have chatted, but it’s the people I don’t immediately recognize who still feel they are connected to me (somehow) that lead me to believe there are other people around who are just like me.

I went to the career center yesterday (I’ve been maybe 4 times this year), and someone called me out for being a frequent visitor. Not only have I never interacted with him before, but I also really don’t hang out there. I wonder who does, and who I’m being perceived as. I wonder if my interactions will bode well for them later.

And people mistake me for their friends from home, their siblings’ friends, friends’ siblings, someone very familiar but not close to them, etc., etc. I get called different names and told that I’m so much like x person, and am I sure I don’t have a sister (yes, unless there’s something my parents aren’t telling me). This comes from peers, people younger than me, and people older than me from geographical locations worldwide.

And then I get the life stories. At the bus stop, in stores, from concierges, security guards, etc. The ones I solicit for conversation are the stories I expect, but some will just tell me. Everything. Tragic things, hopeful things, regrets, reforms. They will advise me (that I should be a good Christian girl, that prostitution (!?!) is not what I should be doing with my life), try to feed me, invite me over for tea, try to invite themselves over for *cough* other things. One time, in finland, I couldn’t talk myself out of visiting this one woman’s apartment for tea. It was strange to be invited into someone’s home having just been strolling around the park. I probably shouldn’t have gone, but she seemed nice enough and seemed to really need to talk about things, and I can oblige. I can’t commit, but I can oblige to listening, talking, trying to give people the familiarity they seem to need.

Because familiar is what I am. I never wanted to be ‘familiar’ or so average that people think I’m someone else. But I like that I can be transient and just be a temporal construct in people’s lives. I guess.