to ask if your appearance is deceiving.....

[thelastshadowpuppet]

One of our customers came in last week and as he was waiting for his order we got chatting and it turns out he is an amazing opera singer. Looking at him you'd never think it. Think older gent, builder type.

Over the weekend I was somewhere that had a piano so I sat down and played something. Someone commented and said to me that they weren't surprised I could play the piano as I just looked like someone who could.

Is there something about your appearance that would give something away about you or not.

Not a judgy thread, please don't turn this into a bun fight.

Just a fun thread........hopefully.

I'm quite petite and dress in a fairly feminine, casual way (skirts/dresses often) and most of my local friends got to know me as a 'mum friend' through school/kids.

Professionally, I run a small business in a tough tech environment, am a maths/software/logic brainbox and a bit ruthless on the business side.

If my two life spheres bump in to each other both are a bit surprised :-)

How wonderful you both started your day with no idea of the delightful few hours tea and chat with a lovely stranger that lay ahead. I just love encounters like this.

As an aside, going through tough times where things are particularly brutal, the kindness of strangers often trigger tears. It is a comfort really, the reminder of a more gentle life... That is how I used to look at it when going through something similar.

I used to live in a small, rural village and, just like all the other mums I'd be there at the school run chatting about the weather and the school fete. What the other parents never knew was that I worked at a Home Office licenced secret facility testing ballistic textiles with prohibited firearms and weapons. So I'd put down the uzi 9mm or the AK47 etc, take off the ear defenders, hop in the car and go into mum mode.

My DC are adults now and still joke about the time mum worked as a hired assassin 😄

In my younger days I was pretty and very slim, and wore feminine clothing. I also have a RP accent. People were usually incredulous when I told them I was a skilled, experienced and professional dry-stone waller.

Short, dumpy and middle aged with orthopaedic footwear and a spot in a local choral society. Amazed to find out that somehow I'm regarded as a person of good standing in the community these days.

I'm also a bloody good bassist with stories about some really hectic punk gigs including one with the Damned where I fucked off somebody from another very well known band when he decided he was getting on MY stage.

You’re lucky, because you’re clever but you don’t look it”

** Me too!

It's great

😀

I have 9 children, I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve been told I don’t look like I have 9 children, don’t know what I’m supposed to look like but not like me lol.

Nothing surprising about me, sorry, but his reminds me of a TV interview I watched as a young teen in the early 90s with the Bangles. The opening preamble, to their faces, was (paraphrasing) - "So many people don't believe it's actually you four playing the instruments because you do it so well and you are all girls". The great bit tosser😡.

I can't remember what the singer said to that, I was too stunned to take much in for a few moments after taht, but she did not seem remotely surprsed. Which must mean they got that a lot🙁. I vaguely remember the drummer looking slightly murderous though.

Since then, I've been in various high school music classes as an adult, and I've found that the best students tend to be girls. Anecdotal, but still.

I once went on holiday to Edinburgh and was stopped and asked for directions by (other) tourists literally every couple of minutes. Had never set foot north of Newcastle before and no Scottish ancestry whatsoever.

I've been very overweight for a few years now, and it's not uncommon for people to be surprised if I point out that I'm really rather tall. I think it's because my proportions are more common for an average sized person - long bodied rather than long legged. It did mean that when I was merely somewhat overweight people didn't believe me when I said I really needed to lose a bit...

My children can both surprise their friends by mentioning they're Australian - since they were born here and have very RP accents, but DD can certainly channel her uncle and grandfather's accents very easily. Both of them are also extremely gifted singers and all-round musicians; classically trained but can turn their skills to any musical style. I suspect they are going to have lots of fun surprising people in future depending on where their lives take them. Both have informally had a go at bass guitar come to think of it.

Also, my UK-born mother in her youth was always assumed to be a native wherever in Europe she visited. Fine if she could speak the language, tricky when people didn't believe that she couldn't.

I'm hoping to take after her in that she has always looked younger than her age. By the time she was in her 60s people tended to assume she was about 15 years younger than she really was. She had trouble connecting with school mums though, the minority who were her age assumed she wasn't "one of them" and she had little in common with most of the younger ones. (she was born pre-war, just, and we can see in all our parents' families where the generation divide falls between baby-boomers and those who came before)

I remember many years ago at uni hearing a group of guys saying how surprised they were that a girl they knew had recently got a first. They all agreed that she was a 'very nice girl' but she didn't come over as an 'intellectual challenge'. She was an obviously intelligent, pretty girl who wore a lot of Laura Ashley! I've always wondered what they thought an 'intellectual challenge' would look like. Maybe someone with thick glasses and a very serious expression?

@Sterline
my DH is the same
6ft 3 tattoos gold teeth very expensive watch and jewellery- looks like what you would imagine a successful drug dealer would look like- or so he’s been told numerous times . He just has this dodgy look about him 😂

Yet he has a very successful business that gives us a very very comfortable lifestyle . he’s kind to people and animals and is much nicer & kinder person than I will ever be .

he speaks two languages fluently - completely self taught
ex pro boxer and numerous belts and trophy’s
but people always look at him and assume bad things 😂

I'd love to think I don't look like an accountant but DS assures me I do.

Unlike some pps above I have often been assumed to be a vegetarian (I love meat!) I am slim with a pale face which perhaps shows what people assume about vegetarians/ vegans ie unhealthy, which is a bit old fashioned. Most veggies I know have a healthy build and rosy complexion!

I've also had people express astonishment when they discover my ardent support of feminism. I wear dresses, makeup and jewellery. Some people seem to have the very odd idea that you don't qualify without one style of "look" such as a shaven head and dungarees.

My friend's partner is tall, very muscular, heavily tattooed with piercings. People assume he must be violent and terrifying but he's actually shy, very kind and thoughtful and a brilliant dad.

Finally my husband who is (rather was) American but has lived in England since age 7, went to public school etc and he talks like Nigel Havers. One of the reasons he finally gave up his US nationality was because whenever he travelled he got endless interrogation about why this posh English gent had a US passport.

Yep. I look like a fully fledged sensible
grown up. And I'm totally not!!

Short and dumpy, normally with 2 kids in tow, in jeans and a hoodie, drive a mum car, normally have my knitting with me and playing pokemon go in the pickup queue... C-Level for 2 different companies in two different timezones (both 50% part time, because I drive a hard bargain, and get a lot done in 20 hours).

@TheOriginalClownfish Public transport is the worst. No escape route. I've heard so many deeply personal stories on public transport that I really did not need to know at that moment.

I have this too! Sometimes it's nice and sometimes it's a complete pain. I'm currently looking for a new beauty therapist as I'm sick of hearing about the old one's problems. It's literally a monologue every. single. time.

I'm a 51 yr old mum of 4. I've been a teenage mum, survived DA and gone to be very happily married and mum to a further 2 dc's.

I also run an electrical engineering company within the entertainment industry. As in my boss is never here, and needs me more than I need him.

I try to dress nicely - plus highlights and makeup - and people are always very surprised at what I do. And in a very much male dominated industry I'm still the exception to the norm.

I have incredible spatial awareness such that if moving furniture I know immediately what will fit through what gap and at what angle.

It's 100% useless as a super power because men will never believe what I say in this regard because I am a woman.

I am a very ordinary looking SAHM on the outside.

On the inside I'm intelligent, educated and will beat most people under the table in a conversation about politics. I look nice and unassuming, but I'm a mean bitch when I need to be.

Apparently this is something thats incompatible with the thought processes and surface judgements of many individuals.

I have quite macabre interests - my dissertation was about dissection, body snatching and Burking. I only really read books about world death practices, morbid anatomy, ossuaries and relics etc. but am blonde and cheerful. Everyone is always shocked when they find out how dark I am underneath!

I have two very unexpected hobbies. I’m small (50kg) and mid thirties and regularly fight in MMA competitions. I also race a very specific and unusual type of car. I mean, I probably may as well say as this is outing AF. Not gonna though.

I’m pretty normal and yet these two things about me never, ever fail to surprise people.

I have the voice of a young sweet girl, when in reality I am build like the proverbial shit brickhouse. When clients turn up after speaking to me on the phone they always look surprised.