(02-03-2024, 07:42 PM)slop Wrote: I also got wing of this habit of people a long time ago, this habit of people (especially Americans I've noticed) to induce your entire personality from a single behavior, trait, or fact about you. 

 Americans can't do anything at all without making it into an entire personality, and they can't observe others doing anything at all without thinking those people are also making that activity into an entire personality. They think chronically in terms of immutable archetypes (of which there are 6, i mean 8, actually 10 no maybe 15)

When I go to, for example, a Panera Bread in Illinois to read a book, everyone who comes in you KNOW has pegged me as an introverted feckless nerd freak who does zero physical activity, probably awkward and stumbles on all of his words. Usually when I do this I feel an insatiable urge to perform some behavior that is unexpected according to their conventions of archetypical fantasy thinking, so I may sit down for 10 minutes (making sure I am visible from the ordering counter and otherwise centrally situated in the cafe), start reading the book with a very pensive face, holding my chin and all, and an affected, anxious looking posture, THEN very confidently go up to the counter and use the most deep, resonant bro voice I can muster to order, FIRST, a steak sandwich (with extra meat added) and then SECOND (the order is important here), a small oat milk latté with an extra shot of espresso (I make sure to say espresso rather than expresso, and really fucking enunciate that first s), 2 shots saffron, 1 shot of caramel. Then in 5 minutes when I go to pick up my order I say thank you in the most singsongy girlqueen faggy vaginaslay girliegirl voice I can do. Then I go back to my table and continue reading, but this time manspreading egregiously, getting food crumbs all over my book, my greasy fingers staining the pages, and shoving that sandwich down my throat in 3 minutes while chewing loudly in the most inconsiderate manner. This is sure to hijack the perception of the onlookers who have been witnessing the scene for a good 15 minutes now and who thought they had me down for good the second I pulled my book out!

Whereas when I go to a café in France to read I can rest assured that onlookers are not hypothesizing my entire personality based on the the sheer fact I'm reading a book in public. They seem to allow for a wider possible combination of interests and personality traits. Within reason of course. In no country is a farmer going to read a philosophy book so you can safely rule some things out. 

Honestly the American mentality on this note is as if they took the "overpowering female family figure" persona (who like to think they have you totally figured out from some minute thing you did 8 years ago) and made it into an an entire country. Like my mom who thought I don't like oysters because one time in Florida I decided to get something else other than oysters at a restaurant and now every single time I propose to get them she says "but you didn't use to like them/I thought you didn't like them/how about we get something else." Now when we are going out to eat, I've come to intuit well though based on her body language exactly the kind of dish she would like me to order for the evening though so I can avoid this type of interaction. If I were to read a book here and then someone starts up a conversation with me and say we happen upon the topic of guns and I tell them I love guns and go to the shooting range a lot (regardless of whether its true), their recessed mandible will drop in utter shock. They will be shivering for weeks to come at having learned such an earth shatting, Nostradamian mysterium tremendum et fascinans, as if they had just received a vision of God on the Mount, that there exist people that simultaneously read books and like guns. The cosmic balance will have been upended. They will ask whether there's been a quadruple planetary alignment that made a scenario like that possible. (On that note after I tell them I like guns I'll ask what their star sign is: sun, moon, and rising)

I am guilty of doing all this as well, but the difference is that I'm actually right and not wrong. Because my reference is usually facial features rather than a personality trait. If you're me you just need one personality trait or interest and enough photos of someone's face to get a good sense of their facial gestalt in order to deduce their ENTIRE being: traumatic history, love interests, sexuality, career, political leanings, manner of upbringing, insecurities, preferred cocktail, etc...

(02-03-2024, 09:05 PM)Fred Stankovich Wrote: miro cech sitting at a table for one still mogs

(02-03-2024, 09:06 PM)AlbanianLegend1994 Wrote: Do you remember this one @slop

(06-03-2024, 03:43 AM)fdeshieldplus Wrote: they reason we do this is because america is a"melting pot" infested with multiculturalism and die-versity so we have to make snap judgements as a matter of self preservation, and frankly we've gotten quite good at it. this is why when europeans visit third world countries they get killed quickly. they are far too afraid to look close minded.