Hello Stranger(98)

“My brain’s been a little wonky lately,” I said with a shrug.

“This isn’t wonky,” Sue said. “This is…” But then she didn’t know what it was.

“Dr. Nicole kept warning me about stuff like this,” I said. “About how the five senses really work together, and if one of them is suddenly altered, it can throw your whole perceptual game off for a while, especially if you throw in our human love affair with confirmation bias.”

I was gearing up to do a whole TED Talk, but Sue was pulling out her phone. “What’s the vet’s name?” she demanded as she started googling.

“Dr. Oliver Addison,” Dr. Oliver Addison supplied.

“Are you googling him?” I asked.

“What’s more likely?” Sue said, scrolling. “That you thought one person was two fully different people—or that this guy…”—she gestured with her phone—“is some kind of scammer trying to lure you into his sex dungeon?”

“Likely?” I started.

But then before I could refer her back to the intricate workings of the ecosystem of the brain, Sue said, “Oh,” and held up her phone for us to see.

And there was Dr. Oliver Addison. In a photo on the vet clinic’s Meet the Staff page on their website. In that white vet coat and tie, with his hair back in that Ivy League do. Looking utterly dashing, legitimately crush-worthy, and exactly like the guy standing next to me.

It was hitting Sue now. “You are Joe from the building?” she asked him.

Joe nodded.

“And you are also this guy?”

Joe nodded.

Sue turned to me. “You thought this one guy was two different people?”

I nodded. “I also did it to a barista in the coffee shop.”

Sue was turning it all around in her head. “So the night the veterinarian stood you up…”

I looked over at Joe.

“I didn’t stand you up,” he said. “I was just late.”

“So,” I said, “when I came out of the bathroom and bumped into you, we weren’t just bumping into each other? You were there for our date?”

Joe nodded.

“And that’s why you never texted or called to apologize for standing me up?”

“Right,” Joe said. “Because I didn’t stand you up. We had an epic first date, if you remember. Panic attack and all.”

I thought of Joe stroking me on the back, and then I said, “Wait a second. When you were helping me through that panic attack, were you petting me like a dog?”

No hesitation. “Yes.”

“So does that mean your ‘friend’ with panic attacks is—”

Joe nodded. “An Irish setter. With an irrational fear of fireworks.”

I put my head in my hands.

Sue was loving this. “So the whole time you were on a date together, you thought he was standing you up?”

“Yes. And I was super mad,” I said. I looked at Joe. “Even that day that I dumped him—I mean you—and he—you—seemed so weirdly upset, and I was like, I don’t know why this dude who stood me up and didn’t even apologize even cares.”

“But how did you not put it together?” Sue wanted to know. “There weren’t any hints along the way?”

Everything that Dr. Nicole had explained about confirmation bias came back—about how we think what we think we’re going to think.

“There were tons of hints,” I said. “I just didn’t notice them.”

Joe was looking at me like he was curious about this, too.

“There was a vet at the clinic, and there was a guy in my building. Why would they be the same? They had different clothes and different hair, and one wore glasses, while the other didn’t. I saw them in different places for different reasons. I didn’t have that one big thing we all rely on—the face—to put them in the category of ‘same person,’ and the factors I was relying on were all different. So I assumed they were different. And then once I made that assumption … once I had decided they were different people … any evidence to the contrary just … didn’t register.”

“But what about his voice?” Sue said, still struggling. “You didn’t recognize that it was the same?”

“I’m bad at voices,” I said.

“But also,” Joe offered helpfully, “when you saw me in the clinic, I would’ve been using more of a professional voice.”

I thought about my dad’s doctor voice—how he made it a little deeper and a little louder when he talked to patients so he could assume the role of wise purveyor of knowledge. Maybe that was part of the professional medical persona—sounding like you were in charge.

“You change your voice when you’re at work?” Sue asked, like maybe he was a pervy scammer after all.

“I don’t change it, exactly,” Joe said. “I just…” He paused like he’d never really tried to articulate this before. “I just lean on the parts of it that sound the most competent and in charge. So it’s maybe a shade deeper—or louder. I’m sure as hell not cursing in front of patients. Or acting silly and giggling. You know. I’m being a professional.”

“Plus,” I added helpfully, “your clinic plays oldies on the speaker system twenty-four seven.”