Have I seen you somewhere?

As cheesy as it sounds, no, this topic is not on pick up lines. Yet I must confess I have heard it more than an umpteen number of times. Before you get any wrong ideas, it's not because I'm in a situation where someone is trying to get to know me romantically. Quite the opposite actually - you see, I've been blessed with quite ordinary looks and I don't mean this in a sarcastic kind of way. 

Usually it would be some business meetings when I'm introducing myself to either some customers or suppliers and I get that remark, "I think I've seen you someplace before...". Though mostly it would have been impossible that our paths could have crossed, yet somehow I've registered myself in their memories. 

In the beginning, it was awkward for me as I struggled through the possibilities of having met the person, much like Doctor Strange frantically cycling through an infinite number of alternate universes to prevent the end of the world in Avengers' Endgame. Sometimes I would wonder for up to a couple of weeks whether I could have met them possibly from work conferences or even through my extended professional network. 

Then it dawned on me that I have the looks of a common man. I could have been mistaken for someone else that looks like me (or rather a good proportion of people with similar looks). I have quite an average height and build, and can easily shop off most stores by getting the M (medium) size. I have normal facial looks that hasn't changed much over the years (according to my long time primary school friend) - looks that could possibly be easy to forget as well as there's no distinct feature that I keep or possess. Yes, I could have been possibly mistaken for someone that they met at a work setting or some random person at a store someplace or even some passerby. 

It really doesn't matter as main thing is they found me familiar and usually thereafter this feeling of familiarity helps me build a better work relationship with them, leading to work getting done more expendiently. In contrast, I have a colleague with a distinct bearded look and usually these same customers and suppliers would try to size him up, dealing with him initially with slight caution and taking a considerable time to get to that same level of familiarity. 

Having normal looks helped me breeze through life. When I was young, I didn't stand out enough in class for the teacher to call on me to read out passages or "volunteer" for activities often. Being 'normal' has helped me escape a lot of the pressures of scrutiny from society. It amuses me when I see how the media is strongly promoting and egging people to be different; to stand out from the rest. I wonder if this inevitably became a societal-created pressure, leading people to question their own identities and likely contributing to higher rates of depression in this world. 

What's wrong about just being entirely yourself, without the desire to say, dye your hair to look different? Strangely as more people start to "tweak" their looks, more and more people somehow will start to converge to look more homogeneous, then that would probably start another neverending cycle of a new, wilder look. It really seems we all suffer from an identity crisis especially as the global population surges into the billions with everyone trying to be unique. 

For me, I'm content being average. In fact, when people ask me if it's because I have ugly looks that I don't upload a profile photo, quite the contrary, is that I have a common look that I feel is rather pointless to upload and possibly distract from the messages that I convey. Nowadays if someone tells me that they've seen me before, I would gladly acknowledge without much further thought, "I'm sure we've met someplace before...", knowing that it bodes well.