When people hear I’m 52, they immediately assume I’m boring, dumb, and not sexy --> invisible.
But when they meet me, they see me as “younger” because I’m bright, independent, and very sexy.
When people find out I have a twenty-one year old son, they think I’m old. Dammit, I don’t feel old except when it’s really cold out.
Hi Surbey. How’s NW IN? Cold? It was low 40’s in CO. And sunny too.
When people hear I’m going to grad school for explosives, they immediately ask if I “blow shit up all day.”
When people hear I play rugby, they immediately ask, “Isn’t that just like, really violent football?”
When people hear my BS was in mechanical engineering, they immediately ask, “Oh, cool, you’re a mechanic?”
When people hear my birthday is February 28th, they they immediately exclaim “Oh you’re a Leap Year baby! You only have a birthday every four years!”
Me: :dubious: Ummm, no, February 28th comes around once a year. Every year. Like clockwork.
When people here I’m a chemist, they either tell me how much they hated chemistry or ask them if I know how to make drugs.
Yes, yes I probably do.
No, I won’t make any for you.
Me, too, and I’m just an EMT. Usually, the very first question is if I’ve ever delivered a baby, then they launch into the litany of symptoms.
When people (here on the East Coast) hear that I’m from Kansas, they ask “Hey! Do you know my buddy X?” Where “X” is someone who lives in rural western Kansas, Missouri, Colorado, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, the Dakodas, Idaho, Arkansas, Utah, or Iowa.
I’m starting to think that everyone on the East coast believes that the entire landmass between them and California is the size of Delaware.
(By the way, I usually do claim to know the person. “Ryan Smith-Helgesen? Oh sure! We raised a barn together once!”)
When people hear I’m a singer, they either ask me if I’ve auditioned for American Idol (“no, that’s not my style of music. Plus, American Idol is stupid”) or ask me to sing for them. What I don’t say: I’m not a performing monkey; or, alternatively: sure, that’ll be $250.
When people hear I’m a writer, the immediately ask me if I’ve had anything published.
Luckily for me, I have.
Funny, when people hear my wife is a Japanese-American born in Cleveland, they ask if she knows their Korean-American friend from Milwaukee.
When people hear I’m in public relations, they immediately think I’m a soulless spin-doctor dedicated to manipulating reality to benefit an evil client who will spend enough money to make any problem disappear.
They’re right of course. Except about the spending enough money part.
Chemist: “Do you know how to make explosives?” (No, but I could figure it out quickly.)
Toxicology Worker: “How do you beat a drug test?” (Unless you don’t take drugs, our methods are sophisticated enough you can’t.)
Mexican: break into Spanish (I know about as much Yiddish as Spanish; why that’s so is a long story.)
When people hear I play poker professionally, they immediately assume I’m like a slot-jockey, only more pretentious or self-deluded.
When people hear I’m a librarian, they either say “I never use the library” or “It must be so nice to read all day long”.
sigh.
When people hear I’m a jazz musician, they immediately ask where they can come hear me play. As if there were ever enough gigs even for the scrappiest of us.
When people hear I’m a mathematician, they say, “Oh, I was never any good at math.” Proudly.
Well, when people hear that I’m an Energy Management System engineer, they immediately get a blank look on their face.
Of course, after I explain what it is, the blank look slowly fades away to be replaced by the dawning light of absolute puzzlement.
Then they ask if I can fix their air conditioner or computer. Yes I can. But I won’t.
When people hear that I’m a translator, they either:
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ask me if I work for the United Nations (no, and they usually mean as an interpreter, which is also a no, but more strongly)
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guess what languages I translate into and out of, incorrectly (it’s the most obvious one, people: I translate from one official language of this country into the other, with the target language being my first language, i.e. the one I can write properly in)
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share with me their deep, penetrating insight into the arcana of the translating profession: that you must translate the sense of the text, not necessarily render it word for word. THANK YOU. In eight years of translation work and two professional diploma courses, I never came across that pearl of insight before.
When people hear I grew up in the south of England, they usually ask if I know their aunt/uncle/cousin. “He lives in Manchester, isn’t that by you?”
When people hear my parents were doctors, they immediately think my family is rich, apparently having missed the “from England” part, or being fuzzy on the particulars of socialized medicine.
When I tell people I’m a nurse, 99.9% of the time the first thing out of their mouths is “OH, do you work in the ER?” Yeah, that’s the only department the hospital has, and the only thing a nurse could possibly do.
The rest of the time, they feel compelled to tell me about every relative, friend or passing acquaintance they’ve ever had who was a nurse.
When people hear I’m a historian/researcher, quite a few immediately either ask me a question about a knotty genealogical problem of theirs. I don’t mind, but I’m not a genealogist (not yet, anyway!).
Actually, no matter how scruffily dressed I am, there have been a lot of times where I haven’t said a thing in the research library, just gone pottering around looking for the reels and fiches and such – and people will make a beeline toward me and ask me librarian-type stuff. I don’t mind, but it’s kinda weird.