how to find your doppelganger

Are *you* my long-lost twin?

My name is Maria Fischer, and I am a twinless human.

I do have a sister, but she is four years younger than me, and we honestly don't even look like we're related — let alone twins.

So while I know I biologically do not have a twin, I've always wondered if someone, somewhere in the world, has the exact same face as I do.

In other words, a doppelgänger.

I'm convinced that every person on this planet has at least one human out there who could pass as their twin — but unfortunately, I don't have the budget to hire a pricey detective to find my "twin" for me.

So I decided to turn to Twin Strangers — a free website dedicated to helping twinless souls find their lookalike.

After quickly browsing the site, I learned that all I had to do to find my twin is:

Upload a face-on picture
Select my key features
Then sit back, relax, and let the website match me with a slew of doppelgängers

Twin Strangers seemed easy enough to navigate, so I signed up immediately.

Let "Operation Doppelgänger" begin.

After creating a username, I was immediately prompted to choose two photos that clearly showed my facial features.

Twin Strangers recommends using camera-facing photos (not profiles or aerial selfies), so I selected a ~glamorous~ (Read: not) non-smiling selfie I took in my bedroom, and my work headshot.

Yes, this beauty:

Resting Bitch Face at its finest.

I had to provide basic information about myself (name, age, ethnicity, etc.) and select my key facial features.

But I quickly discovered that the options were unfortunately very limited.

I was skeptical that a quick questionnaire about my brow shape would result in finding my identical twin, but alas, I studied my face in the mirror and tried to choose my features as accurately as possible.

After completing the questionnaire, I was given a list of potential "twins."

Twin Strangers encouraged me to browse through my "matches" and approve or reject my twins Tinder-style.

I was disappointed to learn that Twin Strangers didn't just find my twin for me — I had to match them.

What is this? Tinder? (Er, Twin-der?)

This was supposed to little-to-no effort.

Even more frustrating, NONE of my matches really looked like me.

By this point, I had serious doubts about the integrity of the Twin Strangers algorithm.

Once I found someone who looked like me, I was supposed to add them to the "My Twins" tab on my profile.

But spoiler: There was, I repeat, no one who looked like me.

Feeling optimistic, I checked the "My Strangers" tab to see if anyone thought I qualified as their long-lost twin.

Anddddd no one picked me as their doppelgänger. Womp womp.

So I went back to my matches and recognized a fellow Resting Bitch Face.

Sisters in slay, we are.

For privacy reasons, Twin Strangers doesn't publish names of potential matches, just their location. (My twin is based in Germany).

If I want more info on my twin, she has to "match" me, too. So far she hasn't.

While I remained twinless, I started to wonder if my co-workers would be able to find their doppelgängers on Twin Strangers.

Maybe I was the only unlucky one?

So I put them to the test.

Although she was skeptical, Alle agreed to give Twin Strangers a try. She uploaded these two photos in the hopes of finding her doppelgänger.

"Someone once told me that I looked like a female Eddie Redmayne, and I've never been able to un-see it," Alle insisted.

That being said, she was still excited to try and find her "actual, non-ETN attending double" with Twin Stranger.

But Alle ran into trouble right away.

"None of the eyebrow options matched mine," she noted. "I'm not vain about much, but I demand accuracy in my brow reporting."

Unfortunately, her two headshots only produced 10 matches.

"And not only did nobody look like me, nobody looked like each other," Alle said. "Like, if these people are supposed to be my twin, shouldn't they all... also... look... like... one another?"

"I honestly think I was just matched with other people wearing a lot of highlighter."

Alle isn't too upset, though. She took it upon herself to find her IRL twin — no website needed.

"Anyway, I already know who my twin is: Sarah Paulson," she stated.

Still feeling hopeful that somebody would find their twin, I asked Nicola to give the site a try.

She provided these two headshots and mentally prepared herself for a sea of internet doppelgängers.

But this was the closest match Twin Stranger could find for Nicola.

"I'm not sure what it is about us as humans that makes us so desperate to find our twins, but this site takes that desire and pretty much crushes it," Nicola joked.

Just when I had given up on Twin Strangers completely, April stepped in and offered up her selfie — and she actually found somewhat of a decent match!

But finding her perfect "Twin Stranger" required making major tweaks to her profile.

"I had to change my ethnicity to find a match," April revealed. "I'm a quarter Puerto Rican so I usually go with caucasian when asked, but none of my caucasian Twin Stranger matches looked anything like me! I switched to Hispanic and the results were still VERY mixed, but I found a match who I'd say is a Cousin Stranger."

Although she found her sort-of doppelgänger, April walked away with mixed feelings about Twin Strangers.

"Overall, this experiment made me feel both self-conscious and judge-y," she admitted.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Twin Strangers is a fun website to play around with, but the website BY NO MEANS guarantees to find your perfect match.
If you want more accurate search results, you can request profile scan upgrade (but it will cost you between $3 and $18 for a new scan).
People have definitely deluded perceptions of what they think they look like IRL.

I personally may not have found my Twin Stranger — but hey, I guess it works for some people. (Click for video)

So twinny, if you're still out there... Follow me on Insta so we can #TwinTuesday for the 'gram.