During the last few months, I have been exposed to a phenomena that I have found quite fascinating. Actually, I had experienced the syndrome before but not to the degree that I see it now. I like to call it the "looks like" phenomena.
I think that I was probably the first to start this particular round of comparisons. Within minutes of Thomas being born, I noticed that the shape of his ears was exactly the same as my pre-Scotch tape ears. I was so struck by this fact that I repeated it to whoever would listen for the next several days. I also noted shortly after his arrival that his eyes were green like mine leading me to proclaim tearfully, "He's got my eyes!"
This was not the end of it, though. It was merely the beginning. Without variance, every person to which I reported the news of the birth asked, "Who does he look like?" I would usually respond with some mish-mash of Tina and my features (e.g. her eyes, my lips, etc.). As I think of it now, I realize that a being of my initial description would probably be a pretty grotesque image.
As Thomas has grown and changed (and changed alot), the initial assessments have changed somewhat but remain pretty accurate. Participation in the phenomenon is no longer limited to us as Tina often reports that many people comment on how much "he looks just like his dad." After hearing this for perhaps the tenth time, again I was struck by the ridiculousness of the comparison. We're talking about an 17 pound human being with no vocabulary and little hair being compared with a full-grown man with no vocabulary and... well, maybe that's not a good example.
Further thought led me to realize that I had often been a victim to comparisons myself. How many times have you met someone only to have them say, "You look just like so-and-so"? I think my most memorable of the genre would have to be the person who thought I looked like Jerzy Kosinski. Actually, I'm guessing at the last name. He is (or was) a beat writer, I think. From what I could tell the only resemblance I bore to him was a beard and the ugly, black horn-rimmed glasses that I was fond of then. Even more amazingly, I later met someone else who made the very same comparison! At that point, shouldn't you start to wonder?
And, you know, I've done it myself. Despite that fact that it has been, at a minimum, annoying when I've experienced it, I have gone right up to people and said, "You look just like this guy I knew in college!" This last development has led me to wonder about the nature of the phenomena. In particular, why do people do this? Moreover, why do people do it when they themselves hate being subject to it?
My conclusion is that it somehow integral to human nature. In particular, I think that fear of the unfamiliar drives us to identify people in terms of the familiar. Maybe it makes it easier to talk to this complete stranger if you can comfort yourself with the fact that he bears a resemblance to your high school chemistry teacher.
Or perhaps it has deeper meaning. Perhaps in the mind's struggle to fit the chaos of the universe into some sort of order and structure that it can comprehend, it must sometimes fit some square pegs into round holes for the sake of simplicity.
Or maybe I do look like Jersey Kazinski.