Why do people assume?

[Jada59]

Thankfully, most people are not this way. But the ones who are, drive me nuts. I'll give you an example of such a conversation.

I bought three bottles of wine the other day. I will refer to the other person as "OP" and me as "Me".

OP: "Wow! You must really like wine!"

Me:"No. I don't drink."

OP: "Oh! Having a party, huh?"

Me: "No. They're a gift."

OP: "Well your friend should like those!"

Me: "Actually they're for..."

OP (interrupts): "I mean your mom."

Me: "No. My daughter is turning 21. They're for her."

OP: "Oh! Then she and her husband should like them."

Me: "She's not married."

OP: "Oh! So how many grandkids has she given you so far?"

Me: "None."

OP: "Oh! She's a lesbian! I gotcha!"

At this point I made some excuse about having to leave and just hurried off.

When I mentioned this conversation to my friend, she said no one has ever done this to her. I wish I could say the same! She told me not to engage such people. Unfortunately I have no way of knowing in advance that the conversation will go this way. I also try not to be rude to people.

I'm just curious though. What causes people to make wrong assumptions? The entire conversation could have been diminished to a quickie if the other person had not made so many wrong assumptions. Very annoying.

 

[Kantarii]

People assume because they’re too lazy to ask the question. But, in those examples you gave, it appears someone is beating around the bush.

 

[Jada59]

People assume because they’re too lazy to ask the question.

Well, that just sucks.

 

[Saint Peter]

Assumption is a tool that humans have relied on since living in caves. It is a mixture of past experience, wildest imagination, gossip, and folklore.

What used to keep us safe by assuming the woolly mammoth is going to eat us now fucks us up as we try to make small talk at the liquor store checkout.

 

[Jada59]

Assumption is a tool that humans have relied on since living in caves. It is a mixture of past experience, wildest imagination, gossip, and folklore.

What used to keep us safe by assuming the woolly mammoth is going to eat us now fucks us up as we try to make small talk at the liquor store checkout.

I see... Thanks!

 

[Saint Peter]

I see... Thanks!

Anytime.


Good luck with your drinking problem!

 

[Jada59]

Anytime.


Good luck with your drinking problem!

Hahaha.

 

[von_Bismarck]

Assumption is a tool that humans have relied on since living in caves. It is a mixture of past experience, wildest imagination, gossip, and folklore.

What used to keep us safe by assuming the woolly mammoth is going to eat us now fucks us up as we try to make small talk at the liquor store checkout.

I agree with this. Idle speculation on my part, but the human brain is a pattern recognition machine. Notice a pattern, and the brain might have an aha moment experienced as a dopamine reward. Same as when a puzzle is solved.

 

[Que]

Assumption is a tool that humans have relied on since living in caves. It is a mixture of past experience, wildest imagination, gossip, and folklore.

What used to keep us safe by assuming the woolly mammoth is going to eat us now fucks us up as we try to make small talk at the liquor store checkout.

That, and the ability to filter out most of what we see and hear. It is why eyewitness testimony is so unreliable. We actually only take in a small portion of available stimulus, and our memories are not videotape, they are an assemblage of what we piece together after the fact from the various fragments.

 

[Nicegirl111]

That is more than ASSumption!! that was rude.... I cant say I ever had that happen or would engage in that..... Personally if I was the clerk , Id ask if it was a good wine and I am always looking for a good wine//// I hope you still went and got at least a bottle!!!

 

[Airka4real]

Sorry, but you could (and should) have easily prevented this.

OP: "Wow! You must really like wine!"

YOU: "Yep".

 

[Tigersman]

As my controller said to me "To assume makes an ass of you and me." I had assumed that the programming dept. had ran a one page program to convert the audit period months back to normal.

 

[Jada59]

As my controller said to me "To assume makes an ass of you and me." I had assumed that the programming dept. had ran a one page program to convert the audit period months back to normal.

Yep!

 

[KeithD]

I've never met anyone who pushed assumptions (in what they said) that far. You might change liquor stores to a better part of town.

 

[Jada59]

I've never met anyone who pushed assumptions (in what they said) that far. You might change liquor stores to a better part of town.

That was just a made up example. I have had this happen countless times with Lit. people though.

 

[Jada59]

Sorry, but you could (and should) have easily prevented this.

OP: "Wow! You must really like wine!"

YOU: "Yep".

Maybe. Or it could have just led to more questions.

 

[CandiCame]

In the real world, people make a lot of assumptions when they hear me speak because of my accent.

The most annoying of those of late is that I'm a trump supporter.

There are literally, without exaggeration, 300,000 more registered democrats in Ky than there are republicans. Like I get it, I get that I sound like a redneck, but fuck everyone who thinks that. They also tend to assume that I'm uneducated and fuck my cousins.

Basically I open my mouth and they hear the theme from deliverance, and it shocks the shit out of them because the stuff I say doesn't make sense being said in the accent so they just... they got nothing.

They'll also make religious assumptions and it's ALWAYS either christian or deital satanist. Like one of those extremes. Like they assume I buy into christian mythology and am on some side of their imaginary conflict, I guess because bible belt? I'm an atheist.

Also, they just assume I am biologically the sex that they think goes with whatever gender I'm presenting as but like, that one doesn't bother me.

Edit: Also, one time this happened, similar to what happened to you, and I swear to god I think it was because I presenting fem and the dude was mansplaining to me, which is still weird to me because I wasn't raised to be prepped for it, so I didn't know it was a thing and just assumed he was a goddamn idiot. I was at a gamestop with my bf, who was gonna buy me video games and had taken me to the Wii section and told me to pick something out, I think he gave me some kind of price to stay under, and I didn't really want anything because I had modded my system, because I'm a shit person and a pirate, so I was looking at these games trying to figure out what was worth spending money on and some dude came up to me and had a real weird conversation something like this:

Him: Oh, you like Nintendo?
Me: Yeah, I guess. I'm not really seeing anything I want.
Him: -starts explaining to me, the bitch standing in a video game store, wearing a Zelda T-shirt, the CONCEPT of a video game-
Me: -thinking he is mentally challenged, because that's the only way I could account for this behavior in my head- Yeah, you got it champ. Sounds like you're up to speed.
Him: -starts talking about emulators even though I gave no indication I wanted to talk about emulators-
Me: Yeah, well, I'm gonna leave now.

So I left, and I went over to where my boyfriend was, I think by the playstations, but this motherfucker followed me, still talking about bullshit?? So I went up to my bf.

Me: I've downloaded everything they've got already
Him: Yeah but you really should, you know, not do that?
This guy: -looks at my boyfriend, who is ALSO obviously a nerd, also I'm pretty sure wearing a nerd shirt-
-starts talking about Skies of Arcadia, I remember this because it was so goddamn random, it's a fucking Dreamcast game and this was in the like... Wii/PS3 era-

Idk we talked about him after that. It was really weird. He straight up assumed I didn't know what a video game was, as a concept, or an emultor, or a gaming PC... basically he assumed I was a goddamn idiot and at the time, I thought he genuinely thought this was new information, because he was stupid, because he was presenting it like it was new information. But now I think that's what mansplaining was and he was trying to impress me with his nerd knowledge, and maybe trying to win my heart by outnerding my boyfriend.

Or he had recently awoken from a coma he went into in 1999. Either or.

 

[golden_thong]

Don't assume, you make an "ass" out of "u" and "me"

 

[Jada59]

In the real world, people make a lot of assumptions when they hear me speak because of my accent.

The most annoying of those of late is that I'm a trump supporter.

There are literally, without exaggeration, 300,000 more registered democrats in Ky than there are republicans. Like I get it, I get that I sound like a redneck, but fuck everyone who thinks that. They also tend to assume that I'm uneducated and fuck my cousins.

Basically I open my mouth and they hear the theme from deliverance, and it shocks the shit out of them because the stuff I say doesn't make sense being said in the accent so they just... they got nothing.

They'll also make religious assumptions and it's ALWAYS either christian or deital satanist. Like one of those extremes. Like they assume I buy into christian mythology and am on some side of their imaginary conflict, I guess because bible belt? I'm an atheist.

Also, they just assume I am biologically the sex that they think goes with whatever gender I'm presenting as but like, that one doesn't bother me.

Edit: Also, one time this happened, similar to what happened to you, and I swear to god I think it was because I presenting fem and the dude was mansplaining to me, which is still weird to me because I wasn't raised to be prepped for it, so I didn't know it was a thing and just assumed he was a goddamn idiot. I was at a gamestop with my bf, who was gonna buy me video games and had taken me to the Wii section and told me to pick something out, I think he gave me some kind of price to stay under, and I didn't really want anything because I had modded my system, because I'm a shit person and a pirate, so I was looking at these games trying to figure out what was worth spending money on and some dude came up to me and had a real weird conversation something like this:

Him: Oh, you like Nintendo?
Me: Yeah, I guess. I'm not really seeing anything I want.
Him: -starts explaining to me, the bitch standing in a video game store, wearing a Zelda T-shirt, the CONCEPT of a video game-
Me: -thinking he is mentally challenged, because that's the only way I could account for this behavior in my head- Yeah, you got it champ. Sounds like you're up to speed.
Him: -starts talking about emulators even though I gave no indication I wanted to talk about emulators-
Me: Yeah, well, I'm gonna leave now.

So I left, and I went over to where my boyfriend was, I think by the playstations, but this motherfucker followed me, still talking about bullshit?? So I went up to my bf.

Me: I've downloaded everything they've got already
Him: Yeah but you really should, you know, not do that?
This guy: -looks at my boyfriend, who is ALSO obviously a nerd, also I'm pretty sure wearing a nerd shirt-
-starts talking about Skies of Arcadia, I remember this because it was so goddamn random, it's a fucking Dreamcast game and this was in the like... Wii/PS3 era-

Idk we talked about him after that. It was really weird. He straight up assumed I didn't know what a video game was, as a concept, or an emultor, or a gaming PC... basically he assumed I was a goddamn idiot and at the time, I thought he genuinely thought this was new information, because he was stupid, because he was presenting it like it was new information. But now I think that's what mansplaining was and he was trying to impress me with his nerd knowledge, and maybe trying to win my heart by outnerding my boyfriend.

Or he had recently awoken from a coma he went into in 1999. Either or.

Hehehe. I hate it when people come across like they think I'm an idiot. Drs. are notorious for that.

 

[Biggs_Darklighter]

That was just a made up example. I have had this happen countless times with Lit. people though.

It's a made up example that you said actually happened and that you said you talked to your friend about?

 

[Jada59]

It's a made up example that you said actually happened and that you said you talked to your friend about?

No. I told her what the real conversation was. I don't want to repeat it here because it was with a Lit. person. And this is not the first time it has happened here. Not with the same person either.

 

[notfeasance]

I wouldn’t have been in that conversation. Sounds like two idiots to me.

Thankfully, most people are not this way. But the ones who are, drive me nuts. I'll give you an example of such a conversation.

I bought three bottles of wine the other day. I will refer to the other person as "OP" and me as "Me".

OP: "Wow! You must really like wine!"

Me:"No. I don't drink."

OP: "Oh! Having a party, huh?"

Me: "No. They're a gift."

OP: "Well your friend should like those!"

Me: "Actually they're for..."

OP (interrupts): "I mean your mom."

Me: "No. My daughter is turning 21. They're for her."

OP: "Oh! Then she and her husband should like them."

Me: "She's not married."

OP: "Oh! So how many grandkids has she given you so far?"

Me: "None."

OP: "Oh! She's a lesbian! I gotcha!"

At this point I made some excuse about having to leave and just hurried off.

When I mentioned this conversation to my friend, she said no one has ever done this to her. I wish I could say the same! She told me not to engage such people. Unfortunately I have no way of knowing in advance that the conversation will go this way. I also try not to be rude to people.

I'm just curious though. What causes people to make wrong assumptions? The entire conversation could have been diminished to a quickie if the other person had not made so many wrong assumptions. Very annoying.