So why would some seemingly intelligent people make stupid assumptions?

Hi guys, this is the script to my latest podcast so please click here if you prefer to listen to it. Now I'm sure most of you would have heard about Europe having these insane heatwaves this summer and London isn't spared. Whilst we have not broken records for the highest temperature recorded in the UK yet this summer, we have had days hitting 35 degrees as early as May. I have been living in the UK since the 1990s and in the past, getting 30 degrees in summer was rare but now, it feels pretty normal now to get this kind of weather during the summer months. But I'm not here to talk about the heatwave today, I'm here to talk about something else that bothers me as much as the hot weather. Whenever we get weather like this, I will have white people tell me, "but Alex, you're from Singapore, it is so hot in Singapore so you must love this kind of weather, right?" It is the assumption that I resent, I don't like it when people make assumptions and I especially hate it when they get it wrong - we hate the hot weather in Singapore and millions are spent every year on elaborate air-conditioning systems in Singapore so the locals don't have to suffer from the tropical heat. These people could have so easily engaged me in a more respectful exchange about my feelings about the heatwave, on climate change and on how European countries have to now learn to cope with much hotter summers now, but instead of treating me like a very intelligent man who has studied geography at two of Europe's top universities on a scholarship, a man who has a wealth of experience having traveled around the world and worked in many different countries, no - my opinion is not relevant, this person is just going to take one look at my skin colour or the country I was born in and make an assumption. And that is highly offensive and so disrespectful, I would never let anyone get away with crap like that. 

But why do people do stupid things like that? They think they can impress me, they are making it all about themselves. They know I'm from Singapore, they know Singapore is a hot, tropical country and perhaps they have even been to Singapore before and felt just hot it is all the time. But to go from, "Singapore is a hot country", to "Alex must like the hot weather because he is from Singapore" is like trying to add 1 + 2 and getting 17. It is by no means a logical conclusion. But allow me to turn this into a lesson on social skills and how to handle such a situation: my friend Cindy is now pregnant and obviously, I'm a man and whilst I have female friends and family members who have gone through pregnancy, can you imagine how offended Cindy would be if I started making assumptions about what Cindy must be experiencing as a pregnant woman, in this misguided effort to try to show her just how much I know about the pregnancy process? No, that would be a painfully autistic thing to do. Instead, if I wanted to talk to Cindy about what it is like being pregnant, I would respectfully ask open ended questions and show genuine interest in her responses, whilst letting on just enough to convince her that this is a topic that I actually know enough about to have a well-informed conversation with her. I would never make any assumptions about what Cindy is going through because that would just be such a stupid thing to do, in fact only very young children and highly autistic people do that. They just don't have the social skills to navigate such social situations and they actually believe that they can impress the other person by making such assumptions, whether the topic is "pregnant women" or "the hot weather in tropical countries". No, don't even go there. 

But where does this kind of behaviour come from? Well I'd like to take you back to my primary school, I remember how the science teacher Mrs Lee was always trying to get children interested in science. After all, the class size was really quite big, we had between 35 to 40 students per class and there was just no way she could give each child the kind of individual attention we needed. Instead, she tried her best to foster curiosity in the children to learn more about science, about the world around us. So if a student were to randomly run up to Mrs Lee the science teacher and say, "there are seven colours in the rainbow", her default reaction would be, "yes there are, very good - can you name all of them?" As a teacher, it is obvious why she would react like that. There are also some parents who will indulge their young children the same way Mrs Lee did, because they want their children to be always learning and anything that is educational would be encouraged in this context. But the problem is that some children never ever grow out of this kind of mindset, they become adults and still treat everyone else around them like Mrs Lee the science teacher - they will try to impress people around them with information and facts as if they were in the classroom with Mrs Lee and of course, that usually has the complete opposite effect. As adults, as we grow up, most of us develop social skills to help us navigate more complex social environment, many of us will develop a skills that will allow us to read the room, that means taking note of the person or the people we are with, evaluating what the best way to build social rapport with them and then managing our interactions with them accordingly with that goal in mind. It means taking a moment to carefully observe the other party and understanding them before even opening our mouths to say a single word. Now this may sound obvious to many of you with pretty good social skills, but you would be amazed how many adults are seemingly clueless in this aspect. 

The fact is Cindy is not a primary school teacher giving out gold stars to people who know some facts about the pregnancy process - if you are a mother who has had a few children, she might be interested in hearing from you what your personal experiences have been. But if you've not done that and if you are a man, then trying to impress her with your knowledge in this field is a really bad idea. Likewise, if you have lived in a very hot country, I would be interested to trade stories with you about how people have different ways and means to cope with the very hot weather in different parts of the world. But if it is evident that I know a lot more about this topic than you do, then once again, I'm not some primary school teacher who will reward you for trying to impress me by making this kind of assumption. The thing which annoys me is that people who make this mistake are not stupid per se, it is not like they are totally uneducated and illiterate, but they have poor social skills and behave like young children. The best thing to do in this situation is to respectfully ask questions and allow the other person to voice their opinion on the topic, this is to show that you are humbling yourself before them and you're happy to learn from them on this topic, that you're acknowledging that they know more than you on this topic. I am not going to make any new friends by trying to impress them with my knowledge - I would only annoy people if I tried that. But I can certainly make them feel very comfortable with me if they feel respected when I am engaging them in conversations about such topics. After all, we have Wikipedia at our fingertips, just reach for your phone and you can access all kinds of information you want on any topic under the sun. Hence in this context, iIt is not information that we lack, but it is this sense of respect that we offer our friends that is badly needed in this kind of situation. So in the case of Cindy, I would gladly ask her some questions that I may know the answer to already, not because I need that information from her, but I'm keen to hear her perspective and learn about her experiences. Hence in showing this kind of interest in her, Cindy will feel cherished and respected in this relationship. 

There is one other aspect about assuming that upsets me and I'm going to use a very British example this time to make my point. There is the British royal family and the public opinion here can be split roughly into three categories: there are those who view them as part of what makes us British and are fiercely loyal to the king. After all, our national anthem is literally "God save the King", so they do believe that the King was put there by God so of course all good British citizens must pledge their undying allegiance to not just the King, but to all the institutions of government associated with the entire royal family. Then there are those who hate the royal family and want it abolished, there have been so many scandals and of course the most obvious one to talk about is Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew who has been arrested. The public opinion is that he is indeed a paedophile closely associated with Jeffrey Epstein and that he should have been arrested a long time ago, but because of his royal status, he has been able to get away with some really hideous crimes and this is good enough reason to get rid of the whole monarchy because it is rotten to the core with very rich people using their privilege for heinous crimes whilst doing nothing for the public good. Then you have the people who are somewhere between the two extremes: they're not fans of the royal family but hey don't hate them either; they don't have a particularly strong opinion about the royal family and would view them simply as yet another very rich family in the UK. And even if you were to abolish the whole system of monarchy here in the UK, the royal family will still remain one of the richest families in the UK and so on the basis of that immense wealth, still retain a huge amount of privilege. After all, there are plenty of very rich families in that position without having that royal status, so it really doesn't make that much difference whether or not they have that official title. So how would a British person feel if someone said to them, "oh you're British, you MUST love the King, God save the King!" Imagine if that British person was an anti-royalist, or even someone just who doesn't have any strong feelings on the monarchy - their reaction would be, how dare you make such an assumption about me based on my nationality, why don't you just ask me what I think? 

And even if you were to speak to someone who does support the King, a true royalist would have a lot of opinions about the royal family and the state of the monarchy. This royalist would have opinions that they would want to express, such as what the King ought to do to improve his public image, to connect with the younger generation, to make the royal family relevant to the lives of ordinary British people and even on controversial topics like Andrew, I'm sure they would have opinions on how the palace ought to deal with this matter. The bottom line is when you have someone who is passionate about a certain topic they want to talk about it, they want to express their opinions, they want to show off how much they do know about this topic - what they don't want is the complete opposite, what they don't want is for you to come and tell them what you think they think or feel about the topic. So even if you do assume correctly that this British person is a royalist and likes the King, you will still cause offence in the process. This royalist would be like, how dare you assume to know what I think about the royal family when I know so much more about the King than you do? So let me make it very clear, under no circumstances should you ever make any assumptions about anyone - it will never lead to a good outcome, So let's apply this theory back to my pregnant friend Cindy - looking at how pregnant she is, one can probably guess that she would experience morning sickness which is quite common but it varies. This name is somewhat misleading as well because pregnant women can experience nausea and throw up at any time of the day and not just the morning. But if I want to talk to Cindy about the topic of morning sickness, I would phrase it as an open ended question and allow her to direct the conversation, to enable her to talk about her experiences and how it is affecting her. The aim of that conversation would be for her to realize that I care about her and I am concerned how she is coping, it should never be, "what a jerk, he thinks he can mansplain morning sickness to a woman." So now you know how I feel when white people make these really dumb assumptions about how I feel about the heatwave in London. You can talk about the hot weather with me of course, but you need to do so in a respectful manner and avoid making any kind of assumptions about how I would feel about the topic. I hope I've explained this clearly. Thank you very much for reading.