False assumptions

I suppose we all make grand assumptions about other people based on the little we know of them - how they behave, how they look, how they speak. Such assumptions are probably wrong as often as they're right. Certainly people have made some very odd assumptions about me. For example:

• Because I'm still thin, then I must work out at the gym (I've never been in a gym)
• Because I'm a well-spoken white male, then I must have been head of some prestigious organisation (I was mostly a bookseller)
• Because I go for walks in a tatty jacket and ancient jeans, and we have a nine year old Renault Clio, then I must be poor (which I'm not)
• Because I live in a very large house, then I must be wealthy (which I'm not)
• Because I'm fairly fit and healthy, and free of addictions and psychological disorders, then I'm smug and self-righteous (which I'm not)
• Because only 9.3 per cent of Northern Irish folk are atheist, then I'm religious (which I'm not)

Of course I make umpteen assumptions about other people, and probably most of them are wrong. I make assumptions about how intelligent someone is or their political beliefs or what food they eat or how well-organised they are.

I assume that someone has seldom left their neighbourhood, only to find they've travelled all over the world. I assume that someone rarely reads a book, only to find they've read all the classics I've never read.

Well, there's no harm in making false assumptions, I suppose, as long as I'm prepared to correct those assumptions if they prove to be nonsense.

As for those assumptions that I'm simultaneously a hopeless romantic and a hardened cynic, that wouldn't be far from the truth.