In reality, my husband and I have a very healthy relationship. He enjoys beer so it doesn’t bother me when he has a few on weekends, he’s certainly not an alcoholic. He has his interests, I have my interests, we have interests together.
Apparently one day his brother said “Wow, you have Juicy pretty whipped. She lets you drink beer and play video games and do whatever you want.” My husband was all “What? You gotta be kid…yeahhhh, she is pretty whipped, isn’t she. snicker.” So we play it up whenever his brother is around - my husband will ask me to bring him something and wink and I’ll act all subservient. It’s hilarious.
I get this one. I try to show them that they could have rebooted the PC themselves but they insist they could never match my years of computer experience.
Me: “Have you tried rebooting?”
Them: “That’s what the computer guy at work always asks.”
Me: “Have you tired it?”
Them: “I don’t know if it will fix the problem.”
Me: “Here, let’s push the little button and see.”
<PC reboots and works fine>
Them: “You’re a genius!”
People have assumed for years that I am a pothead. I don’t know why. All through college and for years afterward people would give me a little wink if I said I never used it, which I didn’t. I once made a joke about a bag of grass clippings being pot and all my friends cracked up. Not because the joke was particularly funny, they all assumed I was a heavy user and somebody had whispered “you would know.” These are people who have known me for years!
This happens to me too. In France, I’m assumed to be French, in Holland, Dutch, Ireland, Irish. That’s not too surprising - I’m of northern European ancestry and apparently I don’t dress like an American. But in Jamaica and St. Vincent and Antigua? I have no idea; I assume I look like a typical North American tourist, but people address me in the local patois and ask directions all the time.
At my job (community college tutoring lab), there’s a copy machine in the room for students to use. Very often students ask me how to work the copier. I’m a tutor, I’m not a copier technician. I don’t know where the paper for the copier is kept. I don’t know how to print something sideways enlarged by 45% in black and white. I don’t know why the copier won’t work. Etc.
Another one who gets asked for directions all the time (or rather did until I moved to the Houston area, where everyone goes around sealed up in a car). The funniest were when I lived in Paris; despite my being pretty sure I looked thoroughly American, every couple of days someone (usually French) on the street would ask me how to get to some obscure location. Maybe 1/3rd of the time I could help them. OTOH, once a guy asked how to get to Gare du Nord while we were both standing in the entranceway of the place, so I didn’t have too much trouble with that one.
Then there was the time I was shooting pool at some dive in Bakersfield, CA and the woman I was playing against asked me if I was British. I’m pretty sure for anyone else who hears the way I speak, that would be about the least likely assumption.
I get this too and have for years.
Way back when, when I worked in the corporate world I had accepted a new job where I had to pass a piss test. The recruiter asked me if there would be a problem and I told him ‘no’. Everyday he called to remind me about the upcoming piss test and if there would be a problem and everyday I would tell him ‘no’.
I thought it was weird but I figured he had issues and it’s not my place to deal with them.
So after I started the job I was telling my new co-workers about the experience and they all said ‘well you are a pot head aren’t you?’.
Uh… no
Well you look like one.
What does a pot head look like?
Granted I smoked my fair share in high school, but you grow up, go to college, get a job, etc. Who has time to get high?
I used to get that one as well when I was a kid, it stemmed from my bat-shit crazy mother telling me I wasn’t allowed to speak to anyone. So I go to school and I refuse to speak to anyone. Teachers thought I was deaf, turns out I’m not. I didn’t appear to be overly shy, I just wouldn’t speak to anyone. So therefore I had to be retarded. This was back in the day when that was a medical diagnosis.
People seem to think I am a nice person. I am not, but I can’t always find enough energy or interest to tell you what I really think about you.
So, my default impression is of being mild-mannered, polite, intelligent and soft spoken. It does have the upside that when I do swear, people sit up and notice.
I wouldn’t call this a “strange” assumption, but because of my last name*, my home town (New York City) and my education (Columbia University), I’m often assumed to be Jewish.
*As far as I know, I’m 100% Irish, but my family name SOUNDS Jewish.
I’ve mentioned this before, but I am very quiet, sometimes have difficulty expressing myself, and when I do, it comes out in a nasal little-girl voice. Many people don’t listen to me, or talk right over me, and they seem to think I’m not all that bright, they think I’m a sort of a poor simple-minded soul who doesn’t know much. When I DO express an idea, an opinion on a complex subject, a deep emotion - when an article I’ve written is published, when I tell them how I make some exotic difficult recipe, or talk about some dangerous crazy thing I did in the past - they’re always surprised. I must sound (and possibly look) dumb, people have actually said they ‘didn’t know I had it in me’.
I regularly get asked “Tech Sales” questions in Best Buy and other electronics stores by random strangers. They assume I’m working there.
Can’t blame them - I’m a geeky looking white guy with chunky glasses, often wearing a polo shirt.
…and I usually help them out just the same, since I am a “tech guy”
…and I also used to work at Best Buy, though compared to a typical BB sales associate I know worlds more about computers and electronics than their current teen-aged workforce.
When I first moved from California to Alaska, I was told by locals that some Alaskans assume “people from down south, that move up north toward Canada, are running from the law.”
I hope that no one made that strange assumption about me, but sometimes I wondered.
That I came to the grocery store to help out all the little old loony birds, and listen to them tell me their tales of woe. I inherited this strange affliction from my mother, and one of my daughters has it. We will attract every senile biddy for miles…
