My Many Mix-ups with Mistaken Identity

Last Saturday night at a trivia contest, one category of questions asked us to name the spouses of famous people whose photos were provided on a sheet of paper. My team had trouble identifying the last two of the 10 photos and kept guessing the wrong people. We lost points for incorrect guesses.

Afterwards, I started thinking about mistaken identities. It can happen easily through similar facial features, hair color, age, or height and weight. Maybe you’ve seen a man or woman in a crowd who looked familiar, only to realize it wasn’t that person once you moved a little closer. Perhaps you see a person wearing a sweatshirt from a university or sports team, and you think of an acquaintance from that school or from the city of the sports team. I know I’ve experienced these situations – although I don’t recall ever asking the person in question if he or she was who I thought.

Creating mistaken identities is also a common convention used in books, TV shows and movies. It makes for interesting plot lines – often humorous but sometimes sad or tragic. Think Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 thriller North by Northwest in which the lead character, an advertising executive named Roger Thornhill (played by Cary Grant), is mistaken for a spy and pursued across the country. Or even the Warner Brothers cartoons featuring Pepé Le Pew, a romantic skunk who thinks a female black cat with a white stripe down her back is a female skunk he wants to woo. And, of course, we can’t forget the mistaken identify involving identical twins Viola and Cesario in William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” play.

In my experience, fortunately, my instances of mistaken identity have not resulted in serious issues and were more humorous than anything.

Mistaken Identity as a Child or Teenager 

The earliest case of mistaken identity for me was during my childhood at home. I remember a day when my brother Doug and I were young – probably in grade school – and Mom was irritated with us. She was usually a very easy-going parent, but there were times when we pushed her beyond some breaking point. No doubt she was trying to get us to do something, but we were ignoring her. If you’re a parent, you can certainly relate.

Suddenly, we heard her yell, “Jug and Dodi, get in here!”

Well, first we were surprised that Mom had yelled at us, and then we complied and went inside to see what she wanted. But later, I began to wonder: Am I Jug or Dodi? The exact catalyst for Mom’s exasperated mix-up of our names has long been forgotten, but this now-funny exclamation became a long-standing joke in the family.

Later as a teenager, I experienced a stereotypical mistaken identity experience. After a football game in an opposing team’s town, my cheerleader squad and I stopped for a quick snack at a fast-food restaurant. We were sitting in some booths when some guys across from us asked me if my name was Carol. (Kind of funny since the chenille emblem on my sweater had my name stitched on it.) Thinking we could have a bit of fun, my friends and I played along and said I was Carol – apparently a sister or cousin of one of their friends or something. After a few minutes, my friends and I finally confessed that I was not actually Carol. I still wonder how much I resembled that Carol girl.

Mistaken Roles 

I’ve also been surprised when people assume I have responsibilities or knowledge that I don’t possess. The most typical experience I’ve had is being confused as a store employee when I’m shopping. Other shoppers have often stopped to ask me a question, assuming I worked there.

The more unusual mistaken identity episode was in an underground Paris metro station while I was waiting for my train. Another passenger came up and asked me something in French. I do speak a little of the language – enough to say “I’m American. I speak only a little French.” But I didn’t feel I could converse with this woman.  

After all these encounters, I’ve concluded that I must look helpful, approachable or nice – and I’m not sad about that. I honestly wished I could have helped all these people.

Mistaken Attributes 

The tent dress I wore in the baby store was similar to the dress on the far right on this vintage Butterick sewing pattern.

Other ways that people have erred regarding my identity fall into what I call some of my “attributes.” Fortunately, I’ve never been offended or hurt as a result, so I’m complaining here. In fact, the examples I’m sharing sparked a bit of shock or even laughter on my part.

When I was a young woman, I visited a baby store to buy a gift for a baby shower I was invited to. It was the mid-1980s, and I was wearing a red-and-white striped tent dress – a style of the day. When a store associate came up to me to ask if I needed any assistance, she also asked me when I was due, assuming my loose-fitting dress was covering a baby bump. The question took me off guard for a few moments before I told her – in a nice way – that I wasn’t pregnant. Perhaps she learned to rephrase her question for future customers to something like “Who are you shopping for today?”

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Just as I enjoy a good plot twist involving mistaken identity, my own brushes with these wrong assumptions have given me lots of fun anecdotes to share. Have you ever been the subject of mistaken identity? Or did you erroneously think someone was a person he or she wasn’t? Let me know in the comments.

By the way, the two celebrities my trivia team couldn’t identify were Rachel Weisz (married to Daniel Craig) and Kourtney Kardashian (married to Travis Barker). We blame the photo quality a bit, but it turned out OK. We still tied with five other teams for first place. Although we lost in the tiebreaker, we’re still calling ourselves winners.  

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~ Heather M. and Jodi B.