Double vision.

I always like to find new ways to relegate my stereotypes to the landfill they belong in. Unfortunately, the world does not give me many opportunities.

I just spent a week in New York, NY and Jersey City, NJ. Almost every interaction I had managed to invoke a stereotype. Most were fairly innocuous

• The twenty-something hurrying out of a gym into a lunchtime crowd with mobile phone to his ear yelling into it something about something that was obviously very important, oblivious to everyone in his way and within ear-shot.


• The middle-ager in exercise clothing and bright white running shoes walking down the river path with arms swinging and a look of determination staring straight through anything in the way of loosing that trim, fit look or those extra ounces


• The obese mid-states tourist, a baggy t-shirt tucked into a high-belted pair of stonewashed denim jeans, with the ubiquitous pair of brand new, stunningly white sports shoes and at least four others with the exact same...maybe a different pastel colour stripe on the sports shoes, and two wearing oversized glasses.

So, what am I supposed to do with my stereotypes?

These are just a sample, there was a myriad of loud New Jersey-ites in sports clothing, a plethora of effeminate shop assistants and more dog-wielding loudmouthed New Yorkers than you could shake a stick at...where was a boy supposed to look to avoid leaping to conclusions and, of course, falling into being my own stuffy, stiff-upper-lipped Englishman stereotype?