An hour and a half away from home, I am surrounded by complete and total strangers. I am living far away from all of the people that I know and love (and don't know and don't love, but that isn't the point). The fact is that I have found something weird and funny happening. I have been seeing many doppelgängers while I have been away from home.

Doppelganger: : a ghostly counterpart of a living person, double, alter ego.

I have met numerous people that not only look like someone else that I know, but they act like them too.  I will give you a couple of examples.

When at Brookdale, I met a girl with unnaturally dyed blondeish reddish hair, small frame, and personality up the yin-yang. This girl was quirky and nice. She was interested in all these bands that I had never heard of before. She had a knack for talking to our acting teacher and had a close relationship with him (she would talk to him about plays and stuff - she just didn't walk out of class at the end of the class. She made an effort to joke around with him).

When signing up for classes at Rowan University, I met a girl who looked exactly like a girl from Brookdale (same hair color, hair type, body shape). The funny thing about it is that this girl's personality is that it is just like the girl from Brookdale. She has so much personality, it is amazing! She also likes weird indie bands (this time around I have some insight with them as well!) She also has a knack for joking around with our teacher!

Why do similar looking people have similar likes and dislikes? Is it our looks cause us to act, feel, or like certain ways or things or is it all by chance? I have met so many cases of doppelgangers that I can no longer say it is by chance. As a member of the human race I understand we all want to feel original and different, but lets face it - with 7 billion people in the world there are going to be different versions of ourselves running around with their versions of our friends.

I know what you’re thinking, what about gender or race? A girl in high school reminded me of my cousins then-wife (soon to be ex). They had, for the most part, the same facial features and the same attitude. They were not the same race, one was black and one was white.

Will the cycle ever break? NO. We may believe the earth revolves around us, but really it revolves around us as an egotistical society. That shouldn't worry us anyway because we are all the same 500 types of people running around!

The real question isn't the existence of doppelgangers, it is who are the real people and who the doppelgangers are. What if doppelgangers meet? (will they cause world destruction or conquer the world?) All I know is that every time I meet someone that looks like me and acts like me, I immediately close them off, because that is one mirror I don't want to look into.

-Ricky.

(This post was lovingly edited by the wonderful Brandon Ennis... my wonderful boyfriend)