What do Christians look like?

I was on the metro this morning and two middle aged women sat opposite me. They were obviously friends (or extremely polite strangers) as they were having quite the conversation. I was reading my book so I don't really know what the conversation was about, but I can tell you that it wasn't about religion. Nothing they said on that train was about religion (why is that relevant? It'll soon be explained.) As the sun was shining through the windows, the metro basically became a green house and, as such, I had my coat unfastened. I didn't have it off. It is only February. As my coat was unfastened, the small silver cross I wear was on show and could easily be seen and I could feel eyes on me. I looked up and the two women hurriedly looked away from me and returned to their conversation.

As the metro pulled into Sunderland, the two women stood up to get off and as they walked away from me I heard one say to her friend,"You know, people shouldn't wear crosses if they don't believe in God." I'm sure you're confused by this statement. I can assure you, I was. But I didn't have time to question anything as they had already got off the metro. As they hadn't mentioned religion any time before that, it couldn't simply be an expansion of a conversation. As they were sitting opposite me, could see my cross, and blatantly stared at me, I can only assume this statement was about me.

Why did they assume that I don't believe in God? Did they think I was too young and, that because the majority of my generation believe religion to be a lot of mumbo jumbo, I must think that too? Or was it because my bag is the shape and design of vampire fangs and thus I must be evil? Or was it because I had purple jeans and two different colour shoelaces and thus someone as colourful as me cannot possible believe in the normally conservative religion of Christianity.

Clearly, as I am not a middle aged man who carries a Bible under one arm and holy water in another, I cannot possibly be a Christian. How can someone tell if you're religious or not from just looking at you? Short answer, and in fact the only answer is, they can't. And anyway, why shouldn't people wear crosses if they don't believe in God? Some people just think they're pretty and want to wear them. No harm in that.

Personally I think God has more important things to worry about.