I checked my watch as I waited patiently for the elevator doors to open. Thankfully I had arrived early to work and was eager to get up to the thirty-first floor and get busy working on my sprint stories. This was important as I just found it easier to get my work done when it was quiet in the office. Even when driving in the car, I preferred silence and the sounds of the wheels on the road to any talk show or music from his radio. Seconds later, the doors opened and I noticed that one of my newly joined colleagues, Stephanie was standing inside. She must have parked on a lower garage level than me. The second I entered the elevator, she instantly shifted nervously to the side and unless I was mistaken, it appeared that she was avoiding eye contact with me as well. Confused and a little concerned that I had somehow offended her, I boarded the elevator in silence and gave her some space so that I would appear less threatening. As we rode the elevator up, Stephanie kept glancing at me, clearly eyeing me up but still avoiding eye contact. After a few seconds, I became even more concerned and so I asked her. “Hey Stephanie, is everything ok?” While I didn’t know what or if I had done anything to upset her, I desperately wanted to figure out why she was behaving so weird around me.
Eventually, over time, we all become our own doppelgangers, you know, these completely different people who just happen to look like us.
“Oh, well no Sam. Not really.” She bit her lower lip and finally looked up at me. Her eyes examined my expressions like a detective would examine a suspect. “By any chance, did you swipe right on me on Tinder?”
“Tinder? No, no sorry, but I don’t use the app. Why?” I could tell from her body language that my response caught her off guard and her expression became one of confusion.
“No? Well, I have Tinder Plus, and when someone swipes right on me, it notifies me and shows me their profile. And someone that looks exactly like you and even has the same name swiped right on me.”
“Wait, really? Can I see their profile?” I asked feeling a little relieved that I hadn’t offended her, and now was more than a little amused that she had found someone that looked exactly like me.
“Sure.” Pulling out her phone, she quickly opened the app and began navigating to her notifications. A couple of seconds later, she rotated her phone and showed it to me. The profile made me nearly jump as it looked exactly like me. It was uncanny, how much he looked like me. Our skin tone was the same, our hairstyle and almost the entirety of our physical appearance minus the fact that the man on the phone wore glasses while I didn’t, and if I was being honest, the man in the profile photos appeared to be a much more confident and charismatic of a person. We looked so similar that I wondered for the briefest of seconds if he might be a long-lost twin brother.
“Wow, we really do look a lot alike. No wonder you thought it was me.”
“Exactly, well at any rate. I was wondering why you hadn’t said anything.” I felt a bit embarrassed after all I did find Stephanie very attractive but had always had a hard time asking someone out. At any rate, I couldn’t take my eyes off of the man on Stephanie’s phone. I couldn’t put my finger on why, but I had an overwhelming urge to know more about him. Maybe the similarities extended beyond just looking a lot alike. Turning my gaze from the phone to Stephanie, I felt compelled to ask her.
“Hey, it might be out of line but would you be willing to meet him?”
“Meet him?”
“Yeah, and unless it makes it too strange, I would love to be nearby when you do. I don’t know why, but I want to see him up close. Would that be too much?” I could see that Stephanie was mulling the idea over. The elevator dinged, letting us know that we had arrived at our floor. As we exited, Stephanie turned towards me and reluctantly looked down at her phone and swiped her finger across the screen. She had chosen to swipe right on the other Sam, displayed there.
“Well, I’ve done it. And Sam, I won’t lie, this makes me feel a little uneasy, but I’m also curious. I mean, how often do you come across someone that looks exactly like you and has the same name on top of that.”
“Ok then, it’s settled. Now we just need to set up a date in a very public place where I can hide and not be seen, but still be able to keep a close eye on you. Maybe down at the coffee shop on the corner. It’s perfect since you can sit outside on the patio and I can sit across the street at the bistro where I can still see you two.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea. I’ll let you know later if he agrees. I have to be honest though. This will definitely be one of the weirdest dates that I’ve ever been on.” I couldn’t help but agree but was happy that Stephanie had agreed to go through with the date. Hopefully my double would also agree.
Later that morning Stephanie sent me a text, letting me know that my doppelganger had contacted her and the two had set up a lunch date for the next day. Filled with excitement, my mind was racing with questions. Like, where did he grow up? Does he have brothers just like I did? I chose to get up early the next morning and head straight to work, figuring that since I didn’t get a good night’s rest, then at least I should channel my frustrations into work. When lunch had finally come around, Stephanie and I headed downstairs in the elevator together but once we were on the ground floor, we separated. She headed to the café and I made my way across the street to the bistro there. Once I had found myself a suitable table at the bistro, I sat down and texted Stephanie to see if she was in position as well. She responded that she had found a table of her own and was waiting for her date to arrive. From where I was, I could see her clearly, and after a short wait, I saw my doppelganger walking down the street. Stephanie and my double greeted one another and then sat down and ordered something from their server, as they began to talk. It was unnerving, even his mannerisms were the same. From the way he held his coffee cup, to the way he was sitting. It was like looking into a mirror except it was into an alternate universe. I was curious about whether he sounded like me. Unlike me, my double appeared to be very confident and outgoing, which made me begin to feel jealous of this duplicate. Seeing the man up close only intensified the urge to know more about him. It was all I could do to not go across the street and meet him myself, seeing that he clearly was having a wonderful time with Stephanie while I was forced to watch from across the street. After all, she must have found him attractive since she was matched with him, which made me wonder. Did she find me attractive too? The only physical difference between us was that this stranger wore glasses and this I didn’t. It was almost painful, as I watched and saw them appear to get along so well.
The doppelganger stood up and went into the café, and seconds later, my phone began to vibrate. Looking down at it I noticed a series of texts. A few were from Stephanie and a few were from my product manager. Skipping past the messages from Stephanie, I looked at the messages from Amit, my product manager and saw that he was calling for an emergency meeting in the war room. There had been some kind of production issue and he needed us all back in the office immediately. Annoyed at the timing of it all, I then checked Stephanie’s messages and saw that she had told me that ‘He just left to go to the bathroom. Also, I told him about you and if you want to meet him. You should come over.’ It wasn’t fair, I did indeed want to meet him, but it would have to wait. I texted back, ‘No, I have to head back to the office for an emergency meeting. If things are going well for you, you should stay and enjoy yourself.’
Getting up, I quickly made my way across the street and back into the office building. In my mind, I was trying to digest what I had seen. Sure, this other guy had the same name and looked a lot like me, but that didn’t mean anything. Not to mention, I hadn’t seen him up close but surely we weren’t exactly alike. The buzzing of my phone got my attention and when I looked at it, I saw another message from Stephanie. ‘I got the same message. I’ll be along shortly.’ I responded to her, ‘Ok, see you upstairs soon. Don’t forget to get his contact info or at least his social media info.’ She sent back a thumbs-up emoji which irked me a little. I have always despised the use of emojis. Once upstairs, I joined the meeting already in progress and then got to work with my team to solve the issue. About twenty minutes later, Stephanie showed up as well and joined us. While we were busy working, I decided to walk over to Stephanie to see if I could ask her a few questions. “Hey, so how did it go?” I asked, even though I was unsure what response I was hoping to hear.
“It was good, we talked a lot about our jobs and our friends. It turns out he is a software engineer just like you as well.” This new bit of information caught me off guard. Where did the similarities end? “And I did get his contact info in case you wanted to stalk him.” Stephanie teased as she passed me a piece of paper with a phone number on it.
“No, but I actually might not want to meet him after all. This just seems so weird. So do you think you’ll see him again?”
“No, I mean he seems like a nice enough guy. But not really my type.” Deep down I didn’t know how to feel about that remark and so I just nodded and headed back to my cubicle. Eyeing the phone number like a dangerous animal, I tried to summon the courage to call him. With a surge of adrenaline, I grabbed my phone and dialed. Unsure what to say should the doppelganger answer.
Later that day, on my drive home. I looked back on the day’s events. It had been an interesting one and had left me feeling exhausted. Looking down at my wrist as it rested on the steering wheel, I noticed a large red stain that hadn’t been there this morning. Ignoring it, I decided to turn the music on the radio a little bit louder and started to hum along with the vocals. Suddenly the sound of a phone vibrating caught my attention, not the one that was playing music through the car, but the one that was located in the travel bag on the passenger seat. Careful not to take my eyes off the road, I reached into the bag and with a quick flick of my thumb, I unlocked it. Shifting my gaze, back and forth from the road to the phone, I saw that I had received a message from Stephanie. The message read, ‘Hey there. Today was a lot of fun, and I was wondering if you would like to meet up for a proper date this Saturday night. Interested?’ Smiling, I placed the phone back into the bag. It had been an enjoyable time with her, and I could be inclined to go out with her again. As I moved my hand away from the bag, I paused over the center cupholder when I noticed the pair of glasses sitting there, and I picked them up. The left lens was cracked and had some blood smudged on it, while the right one was just a bit dirty but otherwise pristine. Thinking about it briefly I decided that I would have to buy a different pair that had a non-prescription lens. Or do I just fix it?