In search of my campus doppelganger

This story begins at the very first day drink of the year, where my life was changed forever. I was walking around when I realized a lot of people were saying hi to me – including a considerable amount of people I didn’t know. I simply attributed this to my budding social network that Dean Fuller had recently told us about.

It wasn’t until a boy pulled me aside and asked me if ,“I would ever go back to Pittsburgh” that I realized something was off. Considering I have never been to Pittsburgh.

I politely told him that he was mistaken, and he looked at me like I told him UMass won a football game. He promptly apologized and explained that I look identical to one of his friends.

That’s when it hit me. I don’t have an extensive network. I have a doppelgänger.

This started happening to me more and more often. I started receiving text messages from my friends claiming they saw this girl who looked exactly like me and almost ran up to her until at the very last minute they (luckily) realized it wasn’t me.

Just a quick word of advice: if you ever do see someone who has an uncanny resemblance to someone, make sure to use some discretion.

Sometimes when you tell a girl she looks “just like Jane the Virgin,” and although you may think it is a compliment, if she hasn’t heard of the show she will get very offended. And then you will have some serious backtracking to do.

When CLEARLY they were just being extremely kind

Campus doppelgängers are more common than I had imagined. The more I talked about mine, the more similar stories I heard.

Last semester my friend Sara had a twin wandering around Southwest who apparently had “the same jacket, hair, and glasses.” In fact, it was Sarah’s older sister who discovered this, leading to a very uncomfortable interaction on the MBTA.

This story provided a lot of entertainment for us, however. And taking creepy pictures of this poor girl in public places has became a bit of a hobby (Sorry!).

Unfortunately, like me, Sara was never able to meet her doppelgänger and had to rely on our candids for proof.

In fact, no one I’ve spoken to has ever met their campus doppelgänger, leading me to question whether there are in fact campus doppelgängers, or if it’s just another sick form of entertainment for my friends.

Sara seeing her doppelgänger for the very first time. Photoshopped or nah?

I was beginning to think that I was never going to meet my doppelgänger, and that the most exciting thing to happen to me had come and gone. But then I discovered a new type of doppelgänger. . .

None of them looked like me, but we all shared the same name.

I was put into a Facebook group message with nine other Keegan Smiths, but I was so excited that I may have taken the whole thing a little bit too far. I was at a party when I received the notification, so I had a bit of a buzz going. Ultimately I fear that I used a few too many exclamation points, forcing two other Keegans to leave the group.

But don’t think I’m going to let that get to me.

So here is a message to my campus doppelgänger, and any other Keegan Smiths out there. Reach out to me! I’ve heard great things about you.