Do I know you?

I'm getting old. I know this not because of my myriad of aches and pains, or the fact that I have my doctor's office on speed dial, or even that gray hairs are waging a turf war in my beard and winning. While all of these are sure signs that I'm aging, the latest indicator is that the people I see in life and on TV are starting to look familiar.

Have you noticed that old people always think you look "just like Edward. You know, honey, Melinda's boy." Everyone looks like someone else. I caught on to this pretty late in life, I'll admit, but now that I know it I've come to realize that most of the times I've been told that I look like someone else, the person making the comparison was almost always on a first-name basis with the entire wait staff at the Early Bird Buffet.

And now I'm doing it. Should I be concerned? Is this one of the signs of imminent death that science has somehow missed?

I think the reason for this phenomenon is that as you age there are more people in your mental Rolodex, and comparisons between new acquaintances and old friends are natural.

They say that old people live in the past. To the extent that that's where a huge and growing percentage of their life experiences are, I think there's something to that. But the next time an old person tells you that you look just like someone, just smile and know that you're being cross-referenced with a lifetime of people who  meant something. And that someday, if you're lucky, everyone will look familiar to you, too.

-Doug