That I must play football. I’m not a sports fan. I’m big, but I’m not muscular at all.
That I’d prefer to be by myself. Not at all. I just never can get a word in edgewise in crowds. So I’m just not talkative until I get into a small group.
People generally assume that I am Scottish or Irish because apparently my accent sounds Scottish or Irish. I currently live in England and I have lived in Germany and Florida previously, so why do they think I’m Scottish?
I once heard that a friend of mine though I was afraid of flying. The truth is I love flying - provided it’s a clear day and I have a window seat, so I can sit and watch down. Otherwise it’s just boring.
That I have no problems being direct and honest when it comes to expressing displeasure or providing negative feedback. In reality, I’m just the opposite. Something as simple as turning down a date can make me anxious, and I often agonize over how to tell subordinates what to do.
That I have an easy time shopping for clothes. My tastes are picky, so that’s at least 75% part of it, but my body dimensions are also to blame. Long legs, high waist, broad shoulders, and small chest often translates to pants that are too short and shirts that don’t fit me quite right.
That I’m not insecure. I very much am; I just do a good job of hiding it.
When I was in the Army, I had a platoon sergeant who thought I was a pot head using the assumtion that “It takes one to know one” and that he used to smoke pot before he joined the Army, so he could tell that I have as well. He would not believe that I had never smoked dope even though I insisted that I never needed to.
My wife gets this a lot. She works in a school and her coworkers assume she’s proper and doesn’t swear and she usually surprises them when she unleashes some of her CPS teacher-level swearing or talking about when she went out and had a few drinks over the weekend. She just threw off a sales clerk in a science store last week by quoting Blue Ribbon and Velet Underground.
Like several other people when my wife and I spent 2 days in NYC we got asked for directions 3 times. I think part of the reason could have been that my wife was wearing a heavy coat, gloves, hat, and scarf instead of a mini-skirt in the below-freezing weather and we knew where we were going instead of standing in the middle of the sidewalk looking at a huge map.
Planing, people!
When there was a B. Dalton at my local mall, I used to go there a lot. I constantly got asked if I worked there. Nope, and I don’t think they let their associates wear faded R.E.M. t-shirts, so what the hell? It happened at Target once, too. I was not wearing red. Again, what the hell?
I think a lot of people assume that because I’m quiet and generally polite, I need help standing up for myself. Once, a friend of mine congratulated me on saying something about a mount that had been ninja’d from me in WoW, saying she “knew how huge this was for [me].” Which…not really. I’m quiet, but I’m also stubborn and bitchy when something bothers me. I’ve gotten it from a couple of other places, too.
That I’m some kind of animal expert because I spent 6 years working in a Pet Store. I STILL get asked for advice and I left that job in early 1999.
My Mom assumes that I’m an awesome computer expert because I know my way around one enough to get by. :rolleyes:
Ah, moms. We love our moms.
I’m sure I’m not the only person in this thread whose mom stocks the fridge with 2 cases of caffeine-free Coke every holiday season because I once, way back in 1983, said I liked it.
I was mistaken for Russian by a Russian girl in one of my classes. This was in the United States. I’m not; I’m primarily Scottish, Irish and Italian (with a few other western European ethnicities thrown in).
I was at Costco, buying all the beer for my wedding. Because it was a huge wedding, it was a lot of beer, like one of those wheeled pallets full of cases of beer.
A couple sees me navigating my beer barge around and asks me whats the best kind of vodka to buy. I guess they assumed I worked there since I was carrying around so many cases.
People often assume that I’m very intelligent.
I suspect it’s the glasses.
Apparently I look helpful, approachable and nice.
This leads both to being asked for directions or adopted by kids in public places, and to assholes thinking they can run roughshod over me. Several assholes were crying “but how can you do this to meeeeeee?” after I’d metaphorically pulled their legs off and inserted them in the place where they store their heads.
Questions about how old my daughter was when I adopted her. She isn’t adopted.
That I’m confident. I do an awesome job of faking that, apparently.
Then again, sometimes I think that is kind of what being confident actually is.
I had a boss once who misplaced $20 then told everybody I worked with that I stole it out of her purse. She “assumed” that because I was living on my own and struggling financially that I would steal money. Nice. Everybody told her that there was no way in hell that I would ever steal but she still insisted that it was me. Never mentioned it to me personally, though. I was told about it a year after the boss had a nervous breakdown and quit.
This one reminds me of one of my own.
I was out shopping with my sister (9 years older than I) and my brother (6 years younger than I). (My brother was about 12 so I was in my late teens and my sister was in her late 20s.) We were at the checkout in some store I can’t remember when the cashier pointed at my brother and said to my sister and I, “How cute. Is he yours?” Somehow, she though my sister and I were a couple and that my brother was “ours”. Huh?
I was in office instead of telecommuting like I normally did, and had found an empty desk in a corner I could set my laptop up on. THe department boss who disliked me came walking through with another department boss, and made some crack about me faking working ‘like normal’ and made a crack about playing World of Warcraft instead of my job, she whirled the laptop around … to show several spreadsheets and my work email up.
Yup, I was actually working at work:dubious::rolleyes: My work laptop was identical to my play laptop, just my work laptop only had office 2007, the VPN program I normally used from home, and the VOIP program that the company used. [She had seen my play laptop one saturday when I came in to bring a friend who didn’t have her car, it was at the shop for the weekend. So I hooked up my cell phone to my play laptop and hung out in the breakroom all afternoon. I happen to have a liking for 17" HP laptops. Heavy but the screen real estate makes gaming easier.]
There are two children from church that my wife and I take care of on weekends–the mom likes having a free babysitter and we love these kids dearly.
Their resemblance to me is shocking (my wife jokes that I must have known their mother ten years ago). So whenever I am out shopping with them, carrying one, the other in tow, I am always mistaken for their daddy. People say nice things. I see an entirely different side of total strangers.
It doesn’t bother me a bit.
Maybe I even encourage it a little 
Many folks when they meet me assume that I am human.
They are usually disabused of the notion after the teleportation has occurred and they are secured for wormhole transit.
Never trust someone who looks completely average.
ETA: And, yes, many people assume I am an employee of the store where I am shopping.
This makes some sense if it is a Best Buy or a Barnes and Noble, but Victoria’s Secret?
Not that I wasn’t flattered, but… well…