I do, I’m just like “wow, um… you… fit the bill.”
Of course when you get to know them (or anyone) no one fts the bill 100% but people who at face value act in an almost completely consistent-with-stereotype manner make me double take a bit.
Anyway, stereotypes and “archetypes” exist because the human brain can only reasonably hold a set number of distinct individuals. For most people, the garbage man isn’t really a “man” he’s “that thing that makes the trash go away.” (see the article I linked below) That doesn’t mean you would deliberately hurt “it” or that if “it” gets hurt by your house you won’t call an ambulance, or won’t say “hi” when you pass “it” it just means that you can’t process every human as a human and holding generalities makes sorting easier. They end up being true because indexing in such a manner is useful. Sure you can’t certain any given person will act a certain way just by looking but hearing them talk and watching them a bit often gives you a reasonable approximation useful for brief communication (though not a relationship). When stereotypes stop being true to at least some small extent they’re often changed or discarded (or at least subject to extensive parody, but that occurs when they ARE true), because the quick recognition tool they are have become useless. Stereotypes aren’t inherently evil, some are bad or outdated at best (i.e. All Jews are not greedy) but many of them, especially if they’re a tad bit more specific, make some sense (if you see a teenager dressed like 50 cent and his speech is laced with profanity you can probably guess they’re into rap and have potential to be a problem kid, again, as a general rule). Or that someone who acts like they’re a tycoon from NYC may expect or like business to be conducted a certain way. It’s always useful to keep in mind that appearances can be deceiving, and that you shouldn’t file them as being bad until something is actually done wrong if they fit a negative stereotype, but stereotypes will often be partially true because the stereotype ceases being useful if it’s not.
See: What is the Monkeysphere? (it’s from a comedy site, but it cites at least a few claims and is generally logical)
P.S. Looking at Wikipedia, stereotype seems to concern a broader brush than I realized, and I may be looking more at a demographic (on preview I see the previous post mentioned this). But I still think at least part of my explanation holds true in some respect.
