What comes first to mind when describing yourself ?

I like to know how people think because it is usually so different from how I think, and I am often surprised (in a good, neurral or bad way, depending on the topic) by the things I hear. Here is a fairly neutral topic (I hope); what do you first identify with when comparing yourself to other people in the world ? For some people it is religion (e.g. the Muslim of Europe), for other it is nationality (e.g. British), for others ethnicity (e.g. Black), for others the ethnico-cultural group (Japanese), but it could also be gender (for feminists, I guess), sexual orientation (mostly for gays), social class (e.g. in India), job/education (e.g. lawyer), or even a neurological or psychological minority group (e.g. manic-depressive, exceptionally gifted, left-handed...). What is it for you ? What would be the 3 adjectives you would choose to best describe yourself and why these ones rather than others ?

REALLY (Is that an adjective .....? Or just a qualifier .... ? He11! Who cares ...?)

BLOODY

HANDSOME

'cause it's true! :biggrin:

(Of course .. that's only my opinion.)

?W????

I was asking which qualifier from the list above or similar :

- religion
- nationality
- ethnicity
- mother tongue (or linguistico-cultural group)
- gender
- sexual orientation
- social class
- job/function
- education level or type
- other minority group

For example for me nationality or mother tongue do not really describe me well as I am multicultural. My gender, sexual orientation, education or job do not distinguish me enough from the rest of society, or are not special enough. So that leaves me with religion ("Strong Atheist", being pretty much in the minority worldwide), social class ("upper-middle", which also isn't the majority), and other minority group (more than one actually).

I guess it depends on the situation and who is asking.
Three words is hard... so right now I am going to hedge. I most often think of myself in terms of job or function. At work I'm an Assistant Principal. At home I'm dad. At church, I'm either the sound guy or the guitar guy. On the freeway I'm the guy everyone flips off. In the dojo I'm just a karateka. To some friends I'm the guy you call at 2am. I'm a professional educator, a corporate trainer, a ropes course instructor, a paintball player, and the catcher for my softball team.

Depending on the situation, I might think in terms of age, marital status, role musical talent, intelligence, gender, height, ethnicity.

Vegatarian - almost vegan, cream in coffee and milk chocolate deny me the title

Objective Atheist - although I've been labelling myself agnostic, I must admit that I've been agreeing more with atheists than agnostics recently. However I don't see religions in the same harsh light that a lot atheists do. In some ways I find a lot of atheists reactionary, and not objective. A lot of atheists brought up in atheistic families don't share the religions are evil idea that a lot of atheists brought up in religious families do.

Native American - in the minority in Canada, I'm also not the stereotypical Native American. I don't feel Native Americans are the victims of history, and I'm not on the dole.

sabro said:

Depending on the situation, I might think in terms of age, marital status, role musical talent, intelligence, gender, height, ethnicity.

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That's interesting because I completely forgot to mention age, marital status or height, which are pretty common denominations, probably because they don't matter to me when I am defining myself*. That's why I started this thread. I want more examples !

* I have always felt 5 to 10 years older than people of my age (except emotionally, where I often feel younger). My marital status didn't change my personality or "self" much. My height hasn't really any influence on the way I see myself, I think.


PS : vegetarian, vegatarian and vegan are also good examples of minority group.

mmmm milk chocolate!

Some people are identified by/with their disability or physical infirmity-
Diabetic, Parapalegic, knee problem, obese...

I'm also curious as to the difference between the way males and females would answer the same question.

Still thinking of my three...

Well as far as being a minority, that could set me apart. The thing that would set me apart from most African Americans is that I have no religious affiliation. A large number of black Americans consider themselves to be Christians. In fact, I don't I've ever met another African American who wasn't a Christian or at least didn't consider themselves to be Christian. :souka: I'm a minority because I'm leaning towards deism. And when I tell people that (namely my black friends) they've never even heard of deism.

Not having a religious affiliation sets me apart from some of my friends.

Maciamo said:

I was asking which qualifier from the list above or similar :

- religion
- nationality
- ethnicity
- mother tongue (or linguistico-cultural group)
- gender
- sexual orientation
- social class
- job/function
- education level or type
- other minority group

For example for me nationality or mother tongue do not really describe me well as I am multicultural. My gender, sexual orientation, education or job do not distinguish me enough from the rest of society, or are not special enough. So that leaves me with religion ("Strong Atheist", being pretty much in the minority worldwide), social class ("upper-middle", which also isn't the majority), and other minority group (more than one actually).

Click to expand...

Ok it's more complicated that just 3 factors but ok I will try to select 3.

Social class: It's very difficult to talk or relate to people who have standards too far from mine. When I am around yuppies I feel like crap, but with people with much lower standard of education or living standards than mine, I find what they say are extremely ignorant and irritating and aggravating.

Commonness in Languages: I don't really like to be forced to learn languages that I find of no use to me or simply I have no interest in. When I was in Australia I used to hang around with Cantonese group or Indonesian group, but I always felt left out, and I didn't really want to bother to learn their languages because there are no career prospects with those in Australia.

People with racist attitudes: I supposed everybody has some racist dispositions and secernate to a certain point. Some differentiates to a greater extent than others. The divergence betwixt these people is that some learn how to restraint it and be more broad minded, on the other hand others don?ft bother to hide their racism. And it is these people who don?ft even bother to hide their racism and choose to act their roughshod racists behaviour so openly that really bothers me.

Here I think (?)... To write, how I think of it... Or - as it is accepted...
I shall try...
My "understanding" of:
Words of Russian rock group "Picnic" - " my name - " the Erased hieroglyph "... Appearance European, soul - Japanese... (... And I even know "name" of this soul...)
Born with the religion.
As though "died", but still " not born again "...
Since childhood living in " two worlds "...
Wishing "to wake up", but tired from " relations of people "...
" Not obeyed by"captive" " (so my relations with Russian are under this "construction")...
"Going" only to me "conducted" in the way... It is my "way"...
For this way I also am given birth...

Tall, Fuzzy, Asian looking dude. (In the Hawaiian Shirt)... that's 4...

honky, faithful, warrior

Open minded, optimistic, and inquisitive. ^_^
I like to choose those over other adjectives to describe myself because the others are either insignificant in my eyes or can't be compared to other people.

When I introduce myself, i think I usually first say my age and what I do. That is, a 22-year-old university student. In my opinion being a student is somethign that I can most identify myself with rather than for example religion, gender orientation or ethnicity. Maybe that's being being a student, for me, best represents a broad variety of things I also see as "being me".
Besides, I haven't really been prejudiced because of my ethnicity, gender, nationality or any fo those things so that's maybe the reason why I don't immediately think of them when describing myself. Maybe others do, though, since for example gender is usually something that you notice first.

miu said:

When I introduce myself, i think I usually first say my age and what I do. That is, a 22-year-old university student. In my opinion being a student is somethign that I can most identify myself with rather than for example religion, gender orientation or ethnicity. Maybe that's being being a student, for me, best represents a broad variety of things I also see as "being me".
Besides, I haven't really been prejudiced because of my ethnicity, gender, nationality or any fo those things so that's maybe the reason why I don't immediately think of them when describing myself. Maybe others do, though, since for example gender is usually something that you notice first.

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Hey, me too! I never realized up until now that whenever I introduce myself I first tell people I'm a student as well. Then of course the most commonly question I'm asked is what's my major. :bluush:

miu said:

When I introduce myself, i think I usually first say my age and what I do. That is, a 22-year-old university student. In my opinion being a student is somethign that I can most identify myself with rather than for example religion, gender orientation or ethnicity.

Click to expand...

It comes a time when people do not like telling their age anymore. Personally I do not think it is very relevant as in the last 15 years almost everyone I have met thought that I was from 5 to 15 years older than I actually was. As for one's occupation, it is not always easy to explain or may not have a strong connection with the person's background of character. E.g. a normal "office job" will tell less about the person than electrician, lawyer, accountant or even student. Gender orientation is only relevant when it is not "straight" and ethnicity or religion only when one is in the minority where they live. I do not expect two Saudis to introduce themselves saying they are "Arab" and "Muslim", but if one of them travels to the US or Japan, it may be useful to mention that. So it is relative to one's situation. On an international foum like this one, it may be quite necessary to tell about one's ethnicity, mother-tongue or religion.