And what do you say?
September 6, 2007
While I was in Chicago last week for a conference, I had a strange encounter. As I was unloading my luggage from the airport shuttle van, the driver walked over to me and rubbed his finger against my forearm. He said, “Oh, nice. I bet not many men would tell you that.” I’m pretty sure he was referring to the hair on my arm, which is a bit on the dark/thick side. I was shocked, and didn’t respond, but started to walk away immediately.
I felt a bit violated, to be honest; it always bothers me when people feel compelled to make personal comments to complete strangers, anyway, and I couldn’t figure out what I’d said or done to lead to this backhanded “compliment.” I felt self-conscious for the rest of the day; being alone in an unfamiliar city was challenging enough.
Has anyone had experiences of other people commenting directly to you about your hair?
Entry Filed under: general. .
5 Comments Add your own
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <pre> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed
1.
elmo | September 9, 2007 at 7:43 pm
My mother has strangers making comments about her hair – a lot. It’s interesting – people know her because of her hair. And one day, my mother noticed that, as she drove to the grocery store, someone was following her . When my mom got out of the car, the woman following her pulled up and yelled, “I love your hair! Who does it for you?” And my mom yelled back that she cut and styled it herself and the woman looked amazed/impressed. I thought that was a bit weird … I guess I don’t notice other people’s hair that much!
2.
Brenna M. | December 4, 2007 at 1:58 am
My boyfriend has dred locks and strangers are always commenting on his hair – asking questions, and even asking to touch it within seconds of meeting him (or in some cases, simply after making eye contact with him!). Sometimes people touch it without asking, which is by far the worst. Hair is a very personal thing (it’s your BODY after all!), and, although offensive, I find it interesting that people are compelled to handle his hair just because it is different from theirs and that difference is intriguing to them. In some situations I’ve witnessed, it almost seems as if these people feel this difference makes it OK for them to violate his personal space – like their interest in the “exotic” gives them carte blanche to do whatever they want in order to explore their curiosity. He is always very bothered by this and I can’t stand the people who are ignorant enough to think that sort of behavior is acceptable.
3.
Doctress Julia | December 27, 2007 at 1:45 am
I had someone here in Madison tell me, out of nowhere, that I had “Jew hair”, apparently since it is long and wavy and kind of kinky. “JEW HAIR”! Yeah, Madison is so progressive. Right.
4.
sally | February 21, 2008 at 2:12 am
OH MY GOD! I am so happy for this thread. This weekend I went out to the bar, and like 4 people had touched my hair by the end of the night. I have thick, curly, wild, shoulder-length hair. One person was my friend’s Bosnian boyfriend. I know him, and lord knows, it’s possible he’d never met a black Puerto Rican before me. So no big deal. But drunk white people — wow do they love to touch my hair. The strangest thing was at the club the potentially gay bartender asked to touch my hair. I guess I don’t really mind as long as people’s hands look clean. However, I am going to start touching their hair at the same time and see how they like it.
P,S. I once had somebody pet my hair in a grocery store line. I couldn’t believe it.
5.
ab | May 19, 2008 at 2:14 am
This guy touched my arm hair before and said, “I (actually) like this!” (like as opposed to other guys). I was like, “great, I grew it just for you”. He was like, huh?
I actually never noticed I had a lot of arm hair. But over the years it, as well as the other hair on my body, has gotten thicker and more noticeable. And prompted by some vicious jokes on a message board I read a few years ago, from guys joking about women’s arm hair, I got self-conscious and now have started shaving/nair-ing. Been doing it for years now, and now I prefer it.