How to influence the way people see you!

Perception is a strange thing, we can change the way people perceive us by many means; our clothes, (which is normally the first thing people notice), the people we are with, the places we go, or attitude and of course our mannerisms we expose. Today was one of those days. I did not really know what clothes I was going to wear, but have this nice Brazilian, zip up sweatshirt, which seems to have a strange effect when I wear this. Well let me start at the beginning; I decided that I would walk down into the city, about a 15-minute walk, mainly down hill, and as it was I nice day took a leisurely walk. As I left the house my neighbour on the ground floor made the first comment. He said I was obviously getting into the football spirit as I had donned my Brazilian top. As I have met him before we talked about the football and the teams we would be following during the World Cup. I have to admit the teams I will be following are; England (because Scotland are not in this and I’m sort of English, as Mark always reminds me), Switzerland as I live here, Holland as I spent 5 years there and of course the best team in the tournament, Brazil! So the next comment was went I was walking across the ‘Kornhausbrucke’ (bridge), yes the suicide bridge, as I mentioned before. A girl (with he partner) walking up on the other side, shouted across and punched the air saying Brazil for the cup… At that point I thought this is going to be a strange day as everyone is going to think I am now Brazilian, so should I sneak home quickly and change, or endure the comments for the rest of the day. So once I was in the city (well town as its pretty small to really call a city), I was then acknowledged by many people as being a Brazilian. As the Brazilian team are over here in Switzerland having their warm up games in preparation for the World Cup, then everyone is interested in Brazil. Quite strange as the German and Dutch teams are also here in preparation for the World Cup and no one is interested, but the Brazilian team, who are camped out in Weggis are having 20,000 people going to their practice sessions and the whole lakeside town near Lucerne has become Brazil for the month. Everywhere are Brazilian flags, etc. Champions Brazil warmed up in style for next month's World Cup with an 8-0 romp over a Lucerne select side in front of a capacity 30,000 crowd at the St Jakob stadium on Tuesday. Ronaldo and Adriano scored twice while Lucio, Juninho Pernambucano, Robinho and Kaka grabbed the other goals. Their opponents were based on the FC Lucerne side which won promotion from the second division this year plus several former players who are now based abroad. Brazil's last international before their opening World Cup match against Croatia on June 13 will be against New Zealand in Geneva on Sunday. The South Americans, who are training at Weggis on the shores of Lake Lucerne, kicked off with the side which coach Carlos Alberto Parreira has already announced will face Croatia and which started their last competitive game against Venezuela in October. Ok we digress; lets get back to the story. So as I wandered through Bern I thought I should go and buy an English shirt for when England are playing, but at 99 Francs I thought this was a little expensive, but then it’s only once every 4 years, but I’m a Brazilian today so best not buy an England shirt, maybe tomorrow. My last shop before returning home I was approached by a couple of Brazilian girls, strange as there seems to be a lot here, and they asked if I was Brazilian. After ‘Oi’ and ‘tudo bem’ I was lost for words and they soon discovered I was a fake!! But nevertheless they seemed interested in me! So as I started to explain, we could influence the way people see us by something as simple as our clothes. So maybe I should wear a shirt that says; I’m single and would like to meet girls! Or depending on whom I’m out with I would need a whole load of different shirts with logos on such as; ‘He’s my friend I’m not gay!, She is my school friend from the Philippians I’m not a Swiss guy that has married and imported a wife!, or I’m not really Brazilian I just happen to like this top. OK, yes I’m going crazy, maybe paranoid but then you should try this out and see the effect!