Was the transition difficult? Years ago I (jokingly) offered to shave my head to match my gf’s anticipated chemo baldness. She took it as a serious offer and it made her so happy I had no choice but to shave.
I went from 30 years of long ponytail to a smooth dome. She ended up not needing chemo. I kept my head shaved for a few years, but for the first few months I’d see my reflection and laugh.
Can’t count the number of times I was mistaken for a doctor while working as a technician in a medical office filled with lots of female nurses and techs. Older folks especially assumed I was “the doctor” based on nothing more than my gender.
As a teenager, I was mistaken for a gas station attendant fairly often. To be honest, I did tend to wear chambray shirts and jeans a lot, and while many stations had switched to self-serv, many were either full-service or at least had full-service islands.
Once, riding on a cable car in SF, the operator thought I was George Lucas. Not that I looked like him, but was him. He wouldn’t believe me when I said I wasn’t and gave me “the nod” when I and my wife got off.
Particularly around Christmas, I get confused for Santa by children quite a bit. I’ll admit, I’ll tend to let my hair and beard grow out in the fall and will wear my round-lens gold-framed glasses. They can be so cute, particularly the ones who hang onto their mother’s leg and just stare. I probably shouldn’t do it, but I do get a kick out of seeing kids being so mesmerized.
I was once mistaken for a 300-pound black man. I’m a white man who weighs half that.
The story is that I had only spoken to this woman on the phone. I have a deep voice that doesn’t really fit me, but it’s what comes out of my mouth when I speak. She had formed a mental image of me based on my voice and were meeting in person for the first time. I entered the room with two other people. She had met the other two, so she knew that the third would be me but I didn’t match her image of me. When I was introduced she blurted out “I thought you were a 300-pound black man!”
“Here are your pap smear results, sir.”
-All through my teenage years, when I’d be hanging out with my best friend, people would ask him if he had any cigarettes, or would ask me if I had any pot on me. It was never the other way around, and it happened all the time. Neither of us have ever smoked, and I don’t partake. I must have given off that aura though.
And now, an amusing story:
I’m working at a bar and it’s Halloween. One of my fellow bartenders comes in dressed in a pimp costume. He’s all decked out in purple, rhinestones, and feathers, big floppy hat, sunglasses, gaudy jewelry, the works. An older lady and her grand-daughter (I assume) walk into the room and see him. The lady turns to the girl and says, “Oh, look Honey! It’s Elton John!”
A timely thread.
Two days ago, at coffee hour after church, a woman I don’t know well comes up to me and says, “I have a strange question for you.”
“OK,” I say.
“There’s a commercial i see a lot that shows a man and a woman walking a pig,” she says, “something about how you can make sure your plan for a good retirement. Are you the man in that commercial?”
Nope, it wasn’t me!
Here’s another. Not quite sure if it fits the spirit of the thread but oh well.
I’m a white guy. One of my nephews is black. After he visited us once I took him down to the airport; he was probably twelve or thirteen. His mom had screwed up the ticket somehow, which leads to an odd situation when he is about to enter the security area. I’ve been told that he is too old to be an unaccompanied minor, so I can’t go with him through security. But the computer flags him and he has to be given a special search. And they can’t do that without permission from an adult who’s responsible for him. Regulations and all.
“So, is your mom putting you on the plane?” the guard asks my nephew.
He’s a little uncomfortable since he doesn’t really know what’s going on. He shakes his head.
“Your dad?”
I start waving from about twenty feet away. “Sir,” I say.
My nephew shakes his head again. “My uncle brought me,” he mumbles.
The security guard looks up. “He here?”
Nephew jabs his finger in my direction.
Guard looks all around, including right at me while I’m waving. “Your uncle?” he says doubtfully after ascertaining that there are in fact no African American men in the vicinity…
We eventually got it straightened out, but it was touch and go there for a few minutes. He was looking for one specific thing, and when it wasn’t to be seen he couldn’t even see me!
When The Beatles’ remastered albums were released in 2009, I picked up the Sgt. Pepper album on CD, and claimed the T-shirt for myself. Inside a convenience store, someone once asked me if I’d ever seen The Beatles perform live.
I was born in 1982. John Lennon died a little over a year before I was born.
I’ve been mistaken for Eminem twice. Once by a bartender who insisted that I must be the real Slim Shady and kept giving me funny looks all night. If my hair is really short and I twist my eyes just right I guess I can see it. ( and in a moment of curiosity, I just checked his Wikipedia page and his birthday is within three days of mine!)
I was once suckered into attending an Amway conference. I left after about 10 minutes and met a friend at a local bar, still dressed in a suit and tie. While I was in the bathroom, he told the rest of the bar that I was a mortician (I’m not). I answered questions for the next hour about what it was like to be a mortician while my friend tried not to choke on his suppressed laughter.
Icelandic.
I’m from the US. I’ve got light blue eyes and brown/blond hair. While in Iceland I had a ton of European tourists ask me questions and directions.
It could have been worse, she could have asked if you were the pig! 
Oink! 
I used to be mistaken for my best friend in college. People would tell me I was good in that play the other night, etc. When I spoke as best man at his wedding, the crowd laughed with relief when I exclaimed, “Contrary to popular belief… I’m NOT X’s brother!”
The High School band director in my town of 1776 people had a phone number only 1 digit different from ours. The phone would ring, I would pick up and hear, “Dave”? “Yes…” Before I figured this out, I had turned down numerous requests to judge band competitions.
But the most puzzling to me is that people would try to guess “where I’m from.” I’ve been told that I sound and seem: Canadian, Amish, or European, even in places only a few miles from my birthplace…
I’m frequently pegged at ex-military, despite never having served. In Chicago, I worked near the Ogilvy Metra station and I would see young men from Great Lakes Naval Base scramble in panic at my approach, thinking I was an officer about to ruin their leave or something. It’s a persistent rumor where I work now, even among actual veterans.
When younger, I was often thought to be a religious fundamentalist of some stripe. I didn’t swear (changed by driving in Chicago traffic), didn’t drink, wasn’t all that promiscuous. Friends were always telling me that their girlfriends/friends/family after first meeting me thought I was nice, but really religious, and always shocked such a goody two-shoes was an atheist.
Yeah, yeah, says the guy whose handle is Honey Badger. :eek:
Don’t worry, I’ll buy you that drink; I didn’t mean nuthin’ by it. I don’t want any trouble here.
I’ve been mistaken for a docent at several museums. Yeah, taking the family to the natural history museum and explaining everything about the mammal-like reptiles of the Permian era will do that.
At a gig back in the day, I was mistaken for Jimmy Buffett’s bass player. I calmly said “You’re right, but don’t tell anyone - I just wanted to do this 4th of July date with my old music buddies” Quite convincing, I thought.