The Spherical Horse Assumption

I believe that you can truly call yourself a physics teacher when you have uttered the phrase "Assume a spherical horse".  Or spherical cow, or spherical chicken.  Any spherical farm creature, really.  Why would you say that?  In physics, we make assumptions to make the problems we are solving easier.  The problem is, the assumptions often limit the results.  Its like that joke where a farm can't get his chickens to lay eggs, so he hires a physicist to figure things out.  Later, the physicist comes to him and says "I have a solution to your problem, but it only works for spherical chickens in a vacuum",

Turns out, we make the same sort of assumptions in life, too.

I made the assumption that my friends knew me better than I know myself, and that they would be better suited to picking out my ideal mate than I was.  How did that go?  Well, keep in mind that these are five separate occasions, involving four different friends.

#1.  She swears she has the perfect guy for me: smart, funny, talented, artistic.  Sounds great, right?  She invites us both to a get-together.  He shows up with the girl he was dating.  Turns out she forgot to check if he was single.

#2. Different friend this time.  She sets me up with a guy she met in Salsa class.  Nice guy, not unattractive, and hopelessly and obviously head-over-heels for my friend.  They got married a few years ago.  I was maid of honor at the wedding.

#3.  Having found her Mr. Right, this same friend decided to try again.  She swears she has it right this time.  Everything I could ever want in a guy.  And it was true.  It just happened that he was also gay.

#4. Another friend told me she knew just the guy for me.  Absolutely everything I was looking for.  A good friend of hers, someone she could always depend on.  We went out once.  A week later she started dating him.  It lasted over two years.

#5.  One of my guy friends wanted to set me up with one of his friends.  Nice guy, a little shy, but really smart and sensitive.  Met him, got an odd vibe, didn't see him again.  What happened to him?  He's currently going through a sex change.

So my assumption, or spherical horse if you will, that my friends would be the ones to find my Mr. Right was dead wrong.

Life Lesson:  Question the assumptions you make.  Don't let them limit your outcomes.