Weird mistaken identities

In My Humble Opinion
1

At least three times in my adult life, people have made assumptions about me that were waaaaay wrong and left me scratching my head.

First was when I got my first engineer job - I was being introduced around as having recently gotten off active duty in the Navy. One of the oldest (literally) engineers somehow took that to mean that I worked for NIS (the Navy Investigative Service) and that I was there to spy on them. In fact, I never had anything to do with NIS - my jobs were almost all in naval aviation. I laughed when I found out he was spreading that story around.

The next one still has me perplexed. One of the women I knew from work decided it would be fun if we had “Girls’ Breakfast” on the first Saturday of every month. We’d go to a local restaurant, eat, and talk, enjoying the time away from work and spouses. (This practice is still going on nearly 10 years later - alas, I no longer live near them.) One morning when we’d been particularly boisterous (silly), an older gentleman came over and made some remark about us female realtors taking all the work away from the men. :confused: We were all government employees at the aviation depot, nary a realtor among us. We never did figure out why he thought we sold houses.

Most recently, one of my coworkers in limbo (where we’re all awaiting our security clearances) made some comment about me working in the computer department. I’m still not sure what made him think I was part of that group. I’m a computer user, maybe a bit more competent than most women my age, but hardly qualified to do much beyond Ctrl-Alt-Del… He seemed flustered when I pointed out that I’m an engineer.

I know I can’t be the only one who this happens to. Share your tales of muddled identities!

2

I’ve often been mistaken for someone who gives a rat’s ass.

3

I’ve heard from more than one person, independently of each other, that I give off the first impression of “guy you don’t want to piss off, because he’ll come back a few days later with a machine gun and clean house”. Try having somebody make that little revelation to you point-blank. Really, it’s the furthest thing from the truth. As I’ve told each of them, I wouldn’t even know where to get my hands on a machine gun; homemade explosives would be far easier (yes, I knew them well enough by this point to make that sort of comment in jest).

I’m still curious as to why these people get that impression. I used to look at the ground a lot and mumble – two of the Introvert’s Top 10 Habits – which might’ve made me look a tad insane, but I cut down on that by about 90% years ago. Whatever the case, it’s not exactly the vibe I want to put out there.

4

I’ve told this story here before, but what the hey . . .

I also once had a guy (admittedly quite a boneheaded, ignorant one) assume that I was a lesbian because I had a “smart mouth.” :confused:

5

A couple of weeks ago the city my company is in had its annual celebration. Our company had a booth, passing out mixed drinks. One of the owners (small company, three owners, 50+ employees) said to my boss the next day, “It was nice to see Sean out there, loosening up a bit.”
Boss said he just nodded and agreed. He was as confused as I was, because I’m one of the more out-going employees here.

6

Apparently my voice sounds female. I always get people on the phone asking me if I’m the lady of the house, or when I call about a doctor’s test results, I give them my name and I always get, “Well who is this?” And when I say it’s me, they hesitate.

A couple of times I’ve gotten strange looks at the drive-thru because they thought it was a woman ordering and a man pulls up.

7

After a particularly brutal pair of breakups, I went into social hibernation. Started a new job. Never socialized, never flirted, never mentioned I was dating at all, anyone, ever. At my previous job, I hadn’t done any of that, either.

So, a few months into the new job, a couple of years after the breakups, I met Ramit and asked him out. Everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief (including a ‘new’ co worker who had joined us from my previous employer only weeks before) and said “good … we thought you were a lesbian”.

???

I decided not to persue the point that I was actually bi- ; apparently simply not dating anyone and wearing rings on my thumbs was enough to convince them I was just a very closeted lesbian.

8

I’ve been mistaken for a woman since adolescence; it bothered me for a few years until I had the epiphany of: “Hey! Fuck 'em!”

I’ve also been mistaken for a gay man quite a bit, both by women I was interested in and by men I wasn’t interested in. The men were (mostly) flattering; the women were pretty discouraging.

But the weirdest combination of that came one night at the beach when I and a girl I was seeing were making out on a lifeguard stand, and some pre-teens started yelling up at us, “WE HATE LESBIANS!”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry or to go whup their butts. The girl I was with stopped me from going down there and telling them what ignorant shits they were.

Daniel

9

Once in a while a caller will say, “May I speak to your mother, please?” (Or worse, my mommy.) I explain that my mother doesn’t live here, it’s just me and my husband, and what is the name of the person to whom you wish to speak? This is normally followed by blubbering, backpedaling, etc.

Jeez, people. State your business and don’t make asinine guesses about who answered the phone.

10

Almost everytime I go to Boarders I’m mistaken for an employee. This has happened more then 5 times. One lady said I looked “official”

11

According to my sister, when she cut her hair short several of her coworkers assumed she had “gone lesbian.”

12

My husband and I are frequently mistaken for a lesbian couple. Me because I’m obviously female and my hubby because he has lovely long hair which he wears in a ponytail and is curvacious. From behind he looks like a slender female and there have been NUMEROUS times when he has gone to the store pushing the baby stroller that he gets honked at. He laughs every time someone that has honked at him sees the BEARD he has and gets a shocked look on their faces. :eek:

13

I worked at a company where we used to pass around a very cheesy 8x10 framed picture of the president. Whoever had screwed up or whatever would have custody of it until someone else screwed up. (The president knew about this and thought it was a riot).

So, this one executive proceeds to interview a number of people and doesn’t really give any thought to the framed 8x10 on his desk. Exactly. He hired a woman who said one of her decisions for taking the job had to do with the fact that we were obviously a really progressive company. She didn’t find out for at least a month that her new boss and the president were NOT lovers.

14

I had a really weird one, very recently. I was in a mall, and a middle aged lady rushed up to me, and said “I am such a big fan of yours, could you sign this slip of paper for me?” I just looked at her, and finally said, “Lady, I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m not that person.” She sniffed and said “I understand that you are probably incognito (this said in a very reverent stage whisper), and I see that you’re putting on a lot of weight for your next project, but I know it’s you.” Finally, I bit. “Who am I, anyway?”

And she says, in the same stage whisper: “Sarah Michelle Gellar.” Then she begins to giggle and nearly started squealing.

She handed me the paper. I signed it. But, with my name: Anastasia Anderson.

She didn’t even look at it. She just smiled and bounced away.

So apparently, I look like a fat Sarah Michelle Gellar. (Fat, yes. SMG? No).

15

A “friend” of mine had a one night stand and went to breakfast at MacDonald’s with her. After he went to the counter and got his order, he sat down next to another girl…oops!!

16

Another “friend” of mine went shopping in a particular store because the District Manager of the store chain gave him his card and said to show them the card and they will got a store discount. My friend was surprised to get a at-cost discount for an expensive CD cassette player. He expected just an employee discount of 10%. It turns out that the employees thought he was the District Manager…oops!!

17

I get a lot of “You look like someone I know,” but the weirdest one was quite awhile ago. I had long hair and had gone up to Seattle with two Thai friends, both of those descriptions are important in a minute. I had a girl with shaved head stop me on the street and ask me if my name was “xxxx”. I can’t remember the name, but she really seemed to think I was that person and then tried to jog my memory by telling me about herself. The conversation ended with, “You know, we were in _____ Skinheads together!” I can’t remember what the particular faction of skinheads was, but I’m quite certain I never belonged to one.

18

My brother is a year and six weeks older than I, and mom used to push us around in a double stroller (me lying in the back and my bro sitting up front).

“Are they twins?” :confused:

19

I’m 24 and I’m at school with a bunch of 17-year-olds because I went back to do a technical program after completing university.

On my very first day there, I went into the bookstore and couldn’t find a book I needed, so asked a clerk where I could find it. He asked me when I had placed my order, because sometimes they were late getting in. Order? I have to pre-order my books? How can I do that before class starts, since I don’t even know what the teacher is going to… OH. :smack: He thought I was the teacher!

It’s useful, though, having people think I’m a prof. If I glare at kids just right they’ll often stop doing whatever retarded thing they’ve been doing, because a teacher caught them at it.

20

Forgive me if I’ve told this story before; I can’t remember if I did.

In April, I accompanied a friend to A & E at UCH (London) as he had a sudden haemmorhage, and there wasn’t anyone to stay with him (it took his wife about 2 hours to get up from Epsom cos of traffic and parking).

Meanwhile, because was feeling whimsical that day, I’d decided to dress that day in mary janes-style school shoes, tights, purple and green tartan mini kilt, black lace blouse, and a 1940s era wool school blazer I bought at a charity shop (the trim matched the skirt.) Right, so I look like an over grown school girl.

Anyway, we got to hospital, and he was stashed into a cubicle, in shock, bleeding profusely, and I took his mobile to ring his wife to let her know what had happened. The signal was non existent inside, so I was walking briskly through casualty to go outside, when a doctor came up to me, and said, ‘Oh, doctor, thank God you’re here, would you please come look at this patient?’

He was absolutely serious – he seemed to think I was a surgeon he’d met at a professional mixer sort of meeting/dinner a few days prior. I don’t go to the doctor’s and hadn’t been in a British hospital in years; do most surgeons dress like Romana from ‘Doctor Who’? :confused:

I couldn’t convince him I wasn’t this person, at all…I am a doctor, but I’m a mediaevalist PhD kind of doctor…trust me, all the meds I know involve leeches and trepanation, but I’ll have a go.

(It gets even sillier, as the staff assumed I was my friend’s girlfriend, and when his wife showed up, they tried to delay her, and came to me saying, ‘His wife’s here, you can slip out the back.’ I’d no idea what they were on about; I’ve known both my friend and his wife for years…had a laugh about it afterwards, really.)