I was chatting to the assistant Zumba instructor, a tiny Asian woman, before class the other day, and she asked me if I was learning the tango.
This seemed a very bizarre question, quite out of left field, and I didn’t know how to answer. Yes, I’m taking dancing lessons, but we haven’t done the tango yet, or I don’t think we have, because we’ve done some Latin dances and my memory is not what it was…in the end it turns out she attends a tango class, and there’s someone there who looks a bit like me, who is also called Kirsty. Was that actually me? Or, no, on second thoughts, that other Kirsty looks a lot older than me, so it probably isn’t me at all. Is it?
This conversation left me quite baffled. I’ve had people say to me in past things like “Why did you ignore me the other day in town, when I waved to you?” , and I wasn’t even anywhere nearby at the time. So it’s quite possible I have a double out there somewhere. But this conversation really felt like the corollary of that old cliche about Asian people all looking the same. It would be fascinating to meet this other Kirsty I think.
