Actors either look appropriate for a role, or they don't. Audiences wouldn't buy Danny DeVito as Batman, or Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Pope. Even out here in reality, people often try to typecast us according to our looks. Weirder, some of us seem to do it to ourselves.

On a gut level, I've never believed I looked like that guy in the mirror. I'm always a bit surprised when I catch my reflection. It's not that my mental image of myself is hugely better looking. I do have some grasp of reality, however faint. But the image of me I carry around in my head is more self-assured — and considerably cooler — than what I see in the mirror.

Intellectually, I know what I look like. I could in fact, pick myself out of a lineup. "That's the guy all right, officer. I understand he's been telling everyone he's me. Yes, I definitely want to press charges. We need to get him off the streets."

The guy in the mirror doesn't actually fit my personality nearly as well as my mental image of myself does. The proof of that — proof to me, anyway — is that Mirror Guy could never have done any number of the things I've done. I know, for example, that Mirror Guy was on the "Today Show" — I've seen the video, it's him all right. I'd recognize that pointy face anywhere. (Maybe I should get him some plastic surgery.) But it was the image of me in my head — Head Guy — who generated the interview and who pulled it off. Mirror Guy's okay, but that was beyond him.

I also doubt Mirror Guy could have done as well academically as Head Guy did. Mirror Guy doesn't look nearly assertive enough to impress a professor in a seminar. Still, if he'd been in charge, he'd have worked harder and goofed off a lot less. So I guess his grades would have been okay. He certainly wouldn't have surreptitiously posted notices calling off several classes he didn't feel like attending. And he never would have killed off a girlfriend as an excuse for missing a philosophy test. (Just verbally. No actual death involved. Fortunately, the professor didn't offer to attend the funeral.)

As for careers, Mirror Guy would have gone into something safe. Like insurance — the guy reeks of insurance. Not selling it — administering it. He'd have gotten to middle management, and if he didn't get laid off, he'd retire wishing he'd taken a few chances. Maybe he'd fixate on that one time in college. That one great woman. It could have been — it should have been — the start of something. But he had that damn philosophy test the next day, so ... so, nothing.

Mirror Guy certainly would have missed out on the extraordinary women Head Guy went out with. But here's what could have been far worse. My wife — the single best thing that's ever happened to me in a lifetime of many excellent things — would never have married Mirror Guy. No chance. I don't blame her. He's not someone I ever wanted to spend much time with, either. Of course, she and I did get married. I never got her to see me as Head Guy. But I did get her to see me as me.

By the way, nowadays, getting older, Mirror Guy's starting to look like something out of "The Walking Dead." Head Guy, of course, is aging gracefully.

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