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 !

People have assumed more than once that I was from Plymouth Brethren background 😁

i did go through a phase in my late teens and early twenties wearing Alice bands and bandanas/head scarves and dowdy clothes, I was very much not wanting attention from men and tried to not accidentally look sexy. In which I only partially succeeded 😁 …but that assumption still threw me

OMG she sounds like a woman I used know in my neighbourhood. (She's moved thank feck!) DH and I share a car - don't need 2, and we got a new car 4 years ago .... well, new to us, it was 5 years old,) and I went off in our new car one day to see my friend,

This woman was gobsmacked that DH let me drive HIS car. DH to his credit said 'it's our car, but even if it was just mine, she could still drive it.' Such an odd comment. And really misogynistic. Only thing worse than misogyny from men is misogyny from women!

We are in the same boat, my DH is older and I am the significantly higher earner. People always assume that I am some sort of gold digger. When I support our whole family and he works part time and does the household stuff.
also the other one was when a man thought ai was taking stuff out of the food bank donations box in Waitrose, when I was actually carefully putting a whole load of stuff in as I had a bonus and wanted to pay it forward. He started shouting at me and I had to put him straight. I had gone to Waitrose wearing socks, sliders, an old battered coat and my hair scraped back as just had been for a walk in the woods and my boots were full of mud. His wife apologised and he stormed off when I asked him if he had ever put anything in when I had just put in about 15 items

Is your boss David Brent?

I was in a meeting with Womens Aid. I wanted to work with them to try and solve a policy problem, but worked for an agency they obviously didn't really trust. They mentioned a project run by another charity and I said "Oh, my partner runs that project" and the two of them made surprised noises, exchanged glances, the tone of the meeting changed and they were much more open. I realised later that they (wrongly) assumed that because my partner worked with survivors of domestic violence, they must be a woman, and therefore I was a lesbian. We got the issue sorted though, and that's the main thing.

This thread should be titled 'tell me how the patriarchy works'.

Many moons ago when I was a student I was sitting in the small garden square in Leicester Square in London waiting for a friend. I was in normal student attire and was reading The Guardian. A man came up to me, thinking just based on where as I was sitting I was a prostitute and offered me £50 for 'a session', I assume he must have been told this is where he could get hooked up.

I said 'do I look like a prostitute, I'm wearing dungarees and reading the Guardian (I was offended just on that point)!!". He said well 'you are sitting here so you must be a prossie! I staying just around the corner, is £50 enough?"

Well I gave him what's for (feminism rules!) but telling this story afterwards friends said I should have taken the money and run (I wish I had, £50 was serious money in those days!)

That I am a) a bit thick for having a strong northern accent and b) that I am working class for the same.
I am lower middle I guess but assumptions made are that I grew up in somewhere like Corornation St. Re the former, I got a place at a grammar school via 11 plus and was fast tracked, doing my O levels at 15 and going to Uni at 17.
It’s always Public School boys who talk down to me and make these assumptions whose education would have cost hundreds of thousands and they are generally arrogant and useless.

Said to me by my then-husband's boss, " You're very bright, have you ever thought about going to university?" I had a degree and was using it in my work but they just saw a young women and made assumptions rather than speaking to me as if i was a human being

I would have loved that purely to know I was about to make her eat her words!

My no 1 is that I was a spy. No 2 I like less but also funny was undercover narc.

An acquaintance had returned from working abroad and was full of themselves about how much money they’d earned; ooh I’ll soon be in the higher level bracket/ I need to find someone who’s landlord to ask advice as I think I’ll be buying property etc etc.
They didn’t expect to say that I’m already a higher rate tax payer and also a landlord (admittedly only through inheritance and I plan on selling and gifting the proceeds to my kids).

I worked as a childminder for 25 years. People always assumed I did it for pocket money. Especially my FIL who always commented on how lucky I was that DH had such a good job that I could stay at home. Despite repeatedly being told that I worked 60 hours a week and for a long time, while DH was establishing his career, I was the major earner.

A new family moved in across the street a few years ago and despite me being friendly towards them, they would ignore me. It was very awkward as me and the mum would both be walking to and from the school at the same time. I even thought it might be a language barrier as they had recently arrived from Romania and didn’t speak much English. After a few months, my Romanian friend who lived at the other end of the road told me the reason they wouldn’t speak to me is because I had so many kids and as they were all different ethnicities, I obviously slept around.

Recently shopping with a friend in the city. We had both bought things so had some bags and were browsing in a dress shop. Older gent sitting waiting for his wife (presumably) said to us - “you must have very generous husbands”. I was so infuriated. We are both professionals who worked all our lives.

I commented back that no, our husbands were fortunate to have rich wives who earned lots.

It's not really a wtf but a personal fave was a cold caller knocking on the door asking if my parents were home 😂
I was 30 and in the house I owned with DH. I said I didn't know if they were home as they live 200 miles away 😁

I was on holiday with my adult son. He looks nothing like me, I am pale skinned, he is mixed race. There was a large group of very drunk people, one of them came over and asked what our relationship ship was. I was a little tipsy myself or I would have said fuck off and mind your own but I told the truth. She said she thought so but the others thought I was with a Turkish gigolo so she was just coming to check!

I always laugh when people mention my posh accent, I came from the east end of London. My siblings are as cockney as they come.

That I’m posher than I am. Lived in the same ordinary working class northern former-mill-town all my life, but when I was younger I didn’t have a strong local accent compared to a lot of people. Don’t know why, but I just didn’t. My parents aren’t broad (mum born & bred here, dad from the midlands, both working class). I’ve actually got broader as I’ve got older.

Anyway, used to get asked quite a bit where I was from and had I lived round here long, as they seemed to think I’d come from somewhere posh (someone once mentioned Cambridge). I could only say “Actually lived here all my life!” and see their reaction.

In my early 20s I worked in a shop with a bunch of teenagers and used to get well meaningly teased about being posh. I’m not, I just didn’t have as thicker local accent as some of them. It was harmless banter, we were friends and I quite enjoyed it really.

However, one day the chat turned to fish finger sandwiches and I mentioned I’d never actually had one. I got rounded on by one of the teenagers who had just started, she flat out accused me of thinking I’m too good for FFS, and therefore also better than the rest of them who enjoyed them regularly. I was rather taken aback, it was really scathing.

I had one that night. Turns out they’re great. But they’ll always remind me of her!

How funny, we cross posted and both of us had assumptions about our accents. I also don’t know why my accent is so different than my siblings. I can only assume that it was picked up from people I worked with..

Omg, same! I don't know what it is about my face but wherever I go in Europe (and occasionally the middle east) people assume I'm a local and start speaking to me in the local language. I am disappointingly and boringly English. It's so weird.

people have assumed that I’m:

a) a lesbian
b) a Christian
c) in witness protection

I used to get my hair done in the local town. I’d been going for about three years when one of the female members of staff said that she thought I lived in a big house with staff, after we were chatting about decorating, (sadly, I don’t). This is because I don’t speak with the local accent and appear ‘posh.’

I’m constantly amazed at the impression I give to others who know nothing about me.

I have quite a few Russians address me in Russian. This has happened for years. DH never believed it until it happened recently.

I am not Russian, none of the family are Russian, we don't live any where near Russia, none of us have ever visited Russian and yet ...

I am very reluctant to do the DNA testing as a result!

It is not just me in the family either - my brother, blonde with green eyes used to holiday in Israel. We are not Jewish, have no ancestors in either maternal or paternal lines etc. And yet, Israelis frequently talked to him in Hebrew, taking him as one of their own.

The usual presumptions when a young woman - I noticed that DD1 is now getting them.

I just realized that if this is the best I have got - my life is charmed!

That's followed me round all my life. My accent and my seemingly aloof manner.

When I married DH who worked in the family business, I was in local government the security man turned to me one day saying that I shouldn't be working because a poor person needed my job. At that time I was earning more than him . I was so shocked I just walked away.

Not me, but my sister, admittedly young looking and married in her early 20s.

She answered the door of her own house to a man obviously selling something, who said, ‘Is your mother in?’