What's the most WTF assumption you've heard about yourself.

[Motorwayview]

Mine is a hum dinger.
DH is significantly older than me - he is retired and I work PT. We have planned carefully so we were able to retire somewhere sunny. During our 35 years together he was a medium earner and I was the higher earner - his job was flexible for school drop offs/ pick ups ect. We have 2 adult DC and grandchildren.
He has joined a hobby group and last night they had a social evening so I went along.
Random woman - who was the wife of the organiser I found out later- " Well, you've landed on your feet - HIS children and ex wife must hate you " said very loudly in front of a group of people I don't really know.
I did put her straight , but WTF !

Haha someone I worked with was going back to the Philippines…another colleague said ‘wow your English is excellent’ well yeah, that’ll happen when it’s their official(ish) language and over 90% of the population speaks it 🙄

What's with all the people assumed to be Russian?!

This has happened to me as well.

When I'm not assumed to be Russian, I've had people think that I'm from the North East of Scotland.

Also that I am a twin.

And that I'm my son's partner or sibling.

So strange!

Re age assumptions, my sister and I still get aged wrong. Since we were in our early twenties, most people assume I am the younger sister. She used to get very twisted up about it (only 2 years difference) but now we are in our 50's we both assume its because I still dress in a more alternative, age inapproriate way, and she looks (and always has) more like a proper grown up!

I was at a social event with my hobby group. One of the older men in the group asks "where is your daughter"
I said shes with her dad. He says oh I didnt realise you had divorced.
Wtf we havent divorced shes just at home with her other parent 😅

Found out a few girls at my work know my son ( who is 19 ) . And according to one of them I am pimping him out to the others and she thinks its unfair 🤭. I told my son to make him aware and he doesn't even know her that well just through a mate and told me to have a laugh with it 🤭🤭

I have an American accent. I’m British and never held a US passport, but you can imagine the assumptions people have had over the years, even those who know me pretty well! A lot if it is ignorance about American society. No matter what I say, they believe the stereotypes.

I owned our house at the time. Called the bank to discuss the mortgage. Bloke wanted to speak to my dh. I said why, its my house. He said this was impossible ( manly guffaw) and to tell my dh to call.
Incandescent was an understatement!

Owned flat in smart but of london. Was a secretary, but a hobby of investing, and am not a spender. Was about 28.
On hearing where my flat was, people alwsys said ' ooh, your bf must have a good job! So insulting really.

Some assumed i had a tatto, because i had a plaster on my ankle. They asked me if i regretted my tatto!

Italian. Apparently i look itialian to other italians:)

That because I’m heavily tattooed and have a turquoise buzz cut I must be a lesbian (I’m not), uneducated (I have a masters), unemployed (not true) or that I must drink a lot / take drugs (I’ve been sober for 25 years).

I’m very boring really, would rather sit and crochet than go out.

I have osteoarthritis at a younger age than most which resulted me having both hips replaced, the first was when I was 49.
My neighbour who works in healthcare blamed my hobby which is horse riding 🙈, yes I’ve had a few falls when I was younger but I didn’t ride much for 20 years.
i now have my own sane and sensible horse and were ’happy Hackers’.
My hip consultant put it down to genetics and is happy for me to ride, even said an active lifestyle is the best thing I can do for my new hips.
luckily my knees aren’t too bad but my hands are suffering and that is nothing to do with riding

Told our financial adviser I was returning to work part time after a long break caring for disabled dc : he said oh we don’t need to put this new income into the life time planning model, it’ll just be nice for you to have some pocket money. I asked him was that really the case with £90k net pa?

People assuming I'm thick because of my accent (I have 4 degrees). People assuming I'm vegetarian (do I look like a wimp? I adore steak). People assuming I'm miserable and men telling me to 'cheer up luv it'll never happen' (I've got a naturally sad-looking face and didn't smile for years because I had crooked teeth). People assuming I'm lonely (because I'm old and all old people are lonely, aren't they?). People talking to me in an extremely patronising voice (because I'm old and therefore must be senile).

Someone asked if I was a lesbian because I have short, multi-coloured, vivid coloured hair, 😂.

I now want to know what a vegetarian is supposed to look like! I know quite a few, they don’t look at all similar??

I once had an office job in which my duties included carrying out some market research by phone. At a meeting of my hobby group, someone asked me what I did.

I clearly didn't do a good job of explaining it, as I found out much later that one person thought I was a stock trader and another thought I was operating a boiler room scam. 😳

Northerners often tell me I’m a southerner. The confidence with which I’m told this is astonishing.

I don’t bother to correct them any more. The truth is I was born and lived lots of my life far, far north of Manchester and have never lived in the south of England.

But what do I know about the place I was born and the places I have lived??

I was recently asked if I didn’t work for a few months because I was able to access my mums money so could live off that. I’ve had access to my mums money for years and have never taken a penny. I’d been in hospital which soon shut the person up but I was disgusted that someone could actually think that of me.

I have suffered similar many times, DH is older, we have one child he has two much older from first marriage, he was widowed 😢.
he’s retired and does school run (12 year old) etc I have a BIG job in the city. I bank roll our many lovely holidays and house.
recently had a woman sat behind me on plane say I bet his first wife is at butlins and ‘gold digging bitch’.
I kid you not. It’s pretty standard. Sometimes I bite back sometimes I can’t be bothered.

We are a dual heritage family. We fostered an older child who physically resembled my husband’s heritage. Found out people were saying we had brought a child over from his parents’ native country to essentially be our housekeeper/nanny. Despite her being a teenager, having a broad local accent, attending school and obviously being treated as a child of our family. I was so shocked at the casual racism.

That I did a drama degree because I wore a hat to the pub.

I did a Maths degree

Andy Hamilton has a great story about when he met a very upper class chap who said "Dont you run the kennels where we board our dogs?" and Andy said "No, sorry I think you have the wrong person" and UCC said "No, you do, I know you do!" to the point where Andy said he was on the verge of ringing his wife to ask "We dont run a kennels do we?!". He said that the confidence of UCC really had him questioning himself!

Another nationality one - I'm British, used to live in France, and am married to a Belgian, so my accent is a bit of a mix. French-speakers always think I'm either Polish or Ukrainian!

Some of DP's extended family were apparently very nervous to meet me because they don't speak much English and I'm British. Despite knowing I lived in France at the time, they assumed there was no chance I could speak French.

Am interested in Simone Weil. She died in 1943 though. Did she mean a talk show?

Unlike a lot of other posters on this thread, I am actually a lesbian but people assume the opposite!

In real life people assume I'm a straight woman, especially if I mention my DC.

On MN I have to say DP instead of DW, otherwise people assume I'm a straight man and say thing like "of course a man had to give his opinion!"

I assume she means Simone Veil

One of my friends is a support worker who supports long-term drug addicts. He was in a supermarket helping a client, Sue, with her shopping when one of his neighbours stopped for a chat. He clearly thought Sue was my friend's mum and referred to her as such, which startled my friend as Sue is (a) nine years younger than him and (b) bizarrely dressed and rather off her trolley. Luckily, Sue didn't seem aware of the implication that she looked decades older than her actual age.