Assumptions…we are all guilty, but do we have any appreciation of what we miss out on life because of our assumptions?
This has been on my mind a lot lately. Part of it has been brought on by the Valentine’s Day party for a bunch of my single friends. I would have post-party recap discussions with each and every one of them, and they would share with me the assumptions that they had made about one another. One friend assumed that an Ivy league grad that she thought was great wouldn’t be interested in her because she has a much less impressive educational background. He would share with me that he thinks that a woman that young and beautiful would never be interested in him.
One party guest would agitate me with the surprise that one of the Hispanic single fathers of the group lived in my neighborhood. I am not sure exactly what the assumption was, but it was around the fact that I live in a really nice neighborhood, and she was surprised that he lived there too. Another guest would assume that every guy there was trying to pick her up, when in the recap discussions not a single man was interested in the “self-absorbed girl”.
Furthering my thoughts around assumptions, when EHarmony Guy and I were dating, we once had a very honest conversation about the assumptions that people make about us. He is half Asian, and he said that everyone assumes he is the uptight smart guy. They are surprised that he keeps up with the latest music, sports and movies. He is in fact the classic all-around American guy. He loves sports, movies, music, the outdoors, backyard cookouts, and he can hold his own in the bar scene.
Me on the other hand, I am the tall blonde girl. It is quickly assumed that I must be stupid. I was on a date once when the date inquired what my ex-husband does for a living when he saw my 5 series BMW. I informed him that I bought the car myself a couple of years after my divorce, and he actually miss took me for a stripper. He did not get another date with me after that. Not that KIA ever had a reasonable chance with me, but the vapor of a chance he had evaporated like a drop of rain in a solar flare when I told him that I worked with computers, and he sincerely didn’t believe me.
People also assume that because I grew up on a farm, and I hold my faith as a Christian with great conviction that I am, prude, naïve or worse yet judgmental. I am none of the three. Feel free to slap me if ever my actions or words suggest otherwise. I do make conservative choices for my own life, but I am extremely liberal minded. To each his own. I do not need someone to have the same beliefs as me in order to be my friend or even more. What a person does in life is between them and their higher power. All I need is for someone to be respectful of my ideas and beliefs. I do not need them to share them.
<3 Weeks Later>
The above paragraphs had been on my mind for a few weeks when I put them down on paper during my flight back from St. Louis. I never got around to posting them onto my blog. Then something would happen that would remind me that I am just as guilty as anyone else about making assumptions. I am not up to confessing what those assumptions were here in my blog, but I do plan on doing two things – 1) I will be forgiving of those that make assumptions about me. 2) I will be owning up to the assumptions that I made the next time that I have the opportunity to sit down and talk to the person that I had the assumptions about. That’s the best I can do being human and all.