This was weird, right?

[Grumpasaurus]

So I am walking up my road the other day, almost at my front door. This lady is walking towards me, and asks me to stop for a minute, which I did. The conversation goes as follows:

Her: are you Portuguese?

Me: no, Canadian (thinking, I am blond and so pale I am almost transparent and have a thick Canadian accent)...

Her: oh (silence). Do you have family in Portugal?

Me: no.

Her: I have family in Portugal but I grew up in America. I am still half Portuguese though.

Me: oh.

Her: so when did you visit Portugal?

Me: never been.

Her: but last year, when you hung your laundry up in the garden, I noticed you had a tea towel from Portugal.

Me: nope I have never been. (panicking slightly- I had never seen this lady before yet she seemed certain she knew me AND my laundry!)

Her: that tea towel is definitely from Portugal, I recognize the cockerel on it.

Me: maybe! Maybe some friends gave it to us, I don't remember where I got it.

Her: you got it in Portugal.

Me: I have never been to Portugal

Her: launches into a five minute tirade about how I should go and that I really should learn how to speak the language.

Me: alright then, see you later (secretly hoping not to ever see her again and considering buying some sort of private-fence system)!

Weird, non?

Sounds as though she may be lonely and thought she had some common ground with you. A bit batty to insist you learn the language though.

You must start dressing in the portugese national dress, carrying a nandos bag of chicken around with you, eating those little custard tarts and swigging beer. Still deny any knowledge of portugal. Do it with a portugese accent. Change your surname to silva. That will mess her up.

This reminds me of my husband's first meeting with my dad...

After my dad left, my husband said, "He doesn't have much of an accent, does he? If anything he sounds northern."

Me: "Well, yeah, he's from Yorkshire..."

H: "I thought he was French?"

Me: "Err..no...where'd you get that idea?"

H: "But you're half French. And your mum isn't French, so I thought it must be your dad. How come you're half French if he's from Yorkshire?"

It took me some time to convince him that I am not, nor have I ever been, half French. I'm really not sure how he came to this conclusion.

Oh, and we'd been together for over a year at this point...

2 ladies in a charity shop decided to have a 5 minute chat about how I totally definitely 'had a look of the Irish about her' without really paying attention to anything I said about knowing of nothing Irish in my heritage, never having been there etc... settling on, 'yes, every time I see her I think that, that she has the look of the Irish about her..'

Nandos is actually South African so carrying around a bag of Nandos would just be confusing!

I have a cockerel t-towel. I also have one with Newton & Ridley on it, bought from Granada Studios. Does this mean I am in fact a glamourous star of Coronation Street? I do hope so. I could ask the school if they wanted me to open their summer fayre or something.

Aha ha this is killing me! MN your responses have really made me smile!

In a way I am pleased to know I am not the only one!! In another way, it worries me that there are sooo many weirdos out there, who feel just so very comfortable approaching others and asking deeply personal questions!

Ha!

I just remembered that I was also once approaches by a couple in a car, who were driving by and were convinced I was Ukrainian.

Still not Ukrainian.

Still Canadian.

And I didn't have a tea towel on me!

I am on the other side of this - I thought my DH was half Italian and accused my MIL to be of being Italian...she is actually American and grew up in Germany...so I think it obvious how I made that mistake!

Geraldine- that is brilliant.

Maybe I should pick a different nation every day.

Would have to buy a lot of new tea-towels, though...

Also, thinking about it, I am on a roll!

There is an Irish lady at work who is convinced I am Irish. Keeps telling me I haven't lost my accent at all.

Maybe it's ME? Maybe I suffer from multiple personality disorder and DONT EVEN KNOW.

Or maybe I should just move back to Canada. Where, now, I have been gone so long and picked up the SLIGHTEST hint of an accent, so everyone there asks where I am from.

I say "Canada, here, I am from HERE"

Inevitably, they respond "no, I mean, originally"

My old tutor at university referred to me to the other staff (one told me later) as that nice blonde Irish girl. I have red hair. I am English.

When we met my sister's in laws to be at her wedding, the grandma hugged me and gasped out, "I'm Irish too!"

I am still not Irish. I'd have a much nicer accent if I were....

I must be Swedish.
All my tea towels come from Ikea.

I just didn't realise it until now.

I've got a tea towel from St Anton, so I must be Austrian? Except my German is rubbish!

Oo i had one last week

her: how old is the baby?
me: 9 weeks
her: so how long ago did you have it?
me:... 9 weeks ago?
her: what colour is it?
me: ... Me coloured?

then started a rant about how her white boyfriend treats her appallingly, but her old black one was lovely.

i tried explaining to her that the colour of someone's skin doesn't make them nasty or nice but she didn't get it.

Don't you mean multiple nationality disorder?

DH was once told by a waiter that he knew him really well. He even produced photos of "the two of them together" to show DH. The other bloke looked nothing like DH.

I was asked repeatedly whether I was Swedish or not by a rather odd man I met in France. When I told him (for about the twentieth time) that I definitely wasn't he triumphantly replied "But I thought you looked like a TURNIP!! Oh how I didn't laugh...

I've also been asked whether DD (blonde, blue-eyed, pale) is mixed race or not. Half-Swedish maybe?

Op I can sympathise with you!

On numerous occasions ive been told I look
-arabic
-polish
-english
-persain and moroccan. When I was working a guy used to come in and insisted I was moroccan and would try and have a conversation with me in their language. Im not moroccan. I am mixed race so I can understand a bit of confusion but not all that much

Typical bloody AIBU thread

OP - am I being unreasonable to pretend I'm not portugeuse?

Everyone - YABU

OP - no I'm not!

My (dark-skinned) DH is constantly being addressed in Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese or Italian.

My favourite occasion was when he was in a bar in Italy with a friend. Everyone absolutely insisted that he was Italian and pretending to be English in order get this to attract women.

I've got a tea towel from the London Dungeon. I now realise I must be imprisoned, historical and dead. What a rubbish Tuesday :(

Just before Christmas I was wandering round the a Manchester market with the DC's who have fairly light colouring whereas I have darker features. A woman on one of the stalls said "oh do you celebrate Christmas then" followed by asking why we did and how lovely it was that we obviously did it for the children. I got a bit confused until I realised that she thought I was Jewish and from foreign parts (I never got that particular detail). I told her that I was in fact not Jewish and was very local, about 20 minutes away from the centre of Manchester in fact.
She then accused me of being anti Semitic for denying my Jewish roots...

Haha I thought this kind of thing only happened to me. I am N.Irish and have had (in N.Ireland) 'Do you speak English?' said in a slow voice. (I am an English teacher).

Also, an old man asked me recently, 'Are you Iranian or Iraqi?' Me: 'Er neither.'

I also had an Afro-Caribbean lady ask me what 'mix' my son was. I said fully Causcasian and she gave me a look of disgust like I was willfully hiding my mixed-race heritage. I am fully N.Irish with loads of red haired aunts, uncles, you name it but have (just be the quirks of DNA) inherited sallow skin, full lips, dark eyes and hair. It appears that I don't look my actual racial heritage.

I have some tea towels from Canada you can have.

They have "Tea Towel" written on them in large friendly letters, apparently in an attempt to avoid any potential sources of misunderstanding.

No cockerels or maple leaves or other insidious identifying marks.

(At least she wasn't convinced you were American )