While events like the above strip do happen to me from time to time, when it comes to being confronted about religion in New York, I am more often than not asked if I’m Jewish.  I guess my dark hair, big nose, and glasses or something.  Stereotypes, such fun!

My favorite instance where someone mistook me for being Jewish went a little like this:

I was walking around Washington Square Park when a man donning Hasidic clothing and haircut was staring at me.  I figured he just caught a glimpse of me and kept walking.  After a block I turned around and he was right behind me; he had been following me.  Once I stopped he quickly blurted out, “Are you Jewish?”

“No, sorry,” I said.

“Oh,” he said absentmindedly, “nobody’s perfect.”

Then he just walked off, leaving me confused on the sidewalk.

People will very often think I’m Russian as well.

In the store one day a man came up to me asking if I was Russian.  Now, during high school I had a Russian friend, and every phone conversation I witnessed him having with relatives contained only one word from him, “da.”  I then learned that “da” meant “yes.”

As I joke, I told the man “da.”

Suddenly, he started talking really quickly in Russian and kept going despite my best efforts to stop him.  After about a minute or so of speaking Russian, he walked off, again leaving me totally confused.

I get confused a lot.