When a merge turns into a conflict

Hi,

I've just had an odd experience with git (1.5.3.1) and wondered if this 
was a known issue.

One of my co-developers has a project, with a README.txt file.  I branch 
from it and begin some edits:

	- make it more AsciiDoc like (ala git)

	- put in the README.txt a few patches that need to be applied

I had no issues 'git add' the file, and performing changes.

However when my colleague came to merge my patches in; git complained 
that the file had conflict because:

	a. it found the ========= AsciiDoc header line

	b. it found the diff markers in the file

I do not know git well enough to know if this is a heurestic that can be 
tweaked via the config file or something else. I am presently learning 
git-filter-branch so I can prepare something to show -- but I just wanted 
to flag and see if anyone else had had the same issue.

Thanks,
Anand