People Who I Am Not

So, I'm playing soccer last night, right? In the second half, we're setting up to defend a corner kick. I'm in the box, marking a player, looking toward the kicker. The ref is about 15 feet away from me. I think I hear the ref say, "David Burns, that's who you look like." Since I don't know any David Burns, I assumed he was talking to another player, but when I don't hear anyone else respond I turn toward him. Sure enough, he's looking right at me.

"You look just like David Burns of the Talking Heads," he says, as if this is suddenly more important than the corner kick that is about to take place in a 2-2 game. "It's been bugging me all game long, who you look like."

There's a long list of famous men I wouldn't mind being compared to. Antonio Banderas. Pierce Brosnan. George Clooney.

David Byrne (not Burns, by the way), is not on the list. Sure, I'm relatively slender and dark haired, but I hope I don't carry the geek factor that Byrne does.  I make a quick wisecrack about the comment and get back into the game.

However, this continues to bother me the following day. This comparison is not an isolated incident. All my life I have been hearing, 'hey, you look like so-and-so.' Don't I look like myself? And, how can I look like so many divergent people, with different looks? Do I have some sort of Zelig-like effect on people. Instead of seeing me, they see the projections of their own inner wishes (yeah, but David Byrne? I know).

Here is a quick list of people I've been told that I "look just like:"
As a kid:
Donny Osmond

Jimmy Connors

Adult:
Rick Springfield
Jimmy Connors (still)

Oliver North (this at a particularly surreal evening at the Blue Moon Tavern at the height of Iran Contra)

Lothaire Bluteau