If you found my wallet

Usually my wallet is fairly spars and contains little personal information. But sense it is fairly full right now it might be possible to figure out a little about me. I have few cards, a few scrapes of paper, and few other odds and ends.

Let’s start with the cards. My EVCC ID gives my name, my school, and a fairly accurate image of my face. It also has an example of my horrible hand writing representing my signature. Depending on the finders opinion of students and community colleges it could be determined that I am either a hard working person trying to gain an education, or that I am a slacker student partying my way through college. Other items in my wallet are needed to gain a better understanding.

My employee business card and an old slip acknowledging my hard work from a manager give the impression that I am working my way through college and probably lead a busy life. A business card from “Americas Best – Contacts and Eyeglasses” shows that I had an eye exam scheduled for last week. That card fails to show that I have very poor eyesight and am entirely dependent on my glasses. Without that knowledge it would impossible to know that my glasses are very dear to me and a key part of my own self image.

Moving on from cards the finder would next examine the receipts I have in my wallet. The Disney Store receipt actually shows a gift I recently purchased for my girlfriend, but by itself would seem very odd in a young college students belongings. The finder could assume that the item was a gift and that I am a loving boyfriend, or they could assume that I am a bit of a pansy and buy myself stuffed animals. My movie ticket receipt from over a month ago show that I went on a date, because I purchased two tickets, and that for some reason I enjoyed the movie enough to keep my stubs.  From this the finder could conclude that I loved this movie or that it was a first date or that it was some special occasion. It would not show them that this was the first movie I had been able to afford to take my girlfriend to in many months, and that my identity as a good boyfriend is very important to me.

Finally my lone debit card and low amount of money would possible lead the finder to assume that I am poor or broke. In reality I simply lose my wallet on a fairly regular basis and therefore try to keep important items out. This is also why there are no pictures or sentimental mementos. But sense the finder does not know this they could easily conclude that I was impersonal or that I had no close ties.

As you can see there are many ways to interpret the contents of my wallet. The many ways have a lot to do with the perspective of the person who is doing the looking. A persons personal belongings can only tell so much about them, and only with a small amount of certainty.