This Outward Appearance

These are things that people have assumed about me at various stages of my existence:

* That I play rugby and/or basketball. Because I am tall and/or built like unto a brick commode. I have played rugby twice in my existence of 28 years. The first time I was 9 years old and freshly arrived in New Zealand from a sheltered small English town upbringing. I ran around in a vague fashion, often in the wrong direction, and, upon being passed the ball, panicked and promptly threw it at the head of a kid in the opposing team.

The second time was in my first year at high school and I almost knocked out this guy called Trent by body slamming him several feet into a drinking fountain.

* That I'm Maori. Or to be precise, more Maori than I actually am, which is fuck all. Blood percentage wise, I'm 1/32nd Maori. Which means that there are 31 bits of me that are English, Dutch, possibly Welsh (Phillips is a Welsh name) and Misc Other. But still, I am sufficiently of olive skin and flat nose to merit the up-nod from random Polynesian dudes on the street, which is pretty cool. It reminds me in a small way, how people in the USA are still 'black' when they have one full blooded African parent, and one full blooded European parent, like Mr Obama for instance. Apparently I'm just Maori enough to qualify for special scholarship type things, though the thought of doing so makes my toes curl for fear of being run over by the hypocracy bus.

* That I'm interested in national sports, namely the rugby and cricket. Interestingly enough, nobody has ever been taken aback at the fact I know equally nothing about our women's net-ball team, but I guess that isn't required when you're a guy. But yeah, I'll be sitting in the taxi or at work or at school or in a tree and sure enough, some bastard will turn to me and try to start a conversation based on last night's super 12 game (I don't even know what super 12 means), or else mutter darkly about arcane formulas involving overs and ducks. I have somewhat trained in the skill of pretending to know what the other person is talking about in these instances, which is as effective as nodding and smiling when being spoken to in Swahili. All you can do is hope like hell that you haven't accidentally insulted the person's tribe or asked to sleep with their sister.

But enough about me. What assumptions grind your gears, good people? Entertain me with stories.