Thats strange. I (assume I) have the same hair-colour, or a similar one. and get the “do you dye your hair?” all the time, and I’m in my early twenties, so they don’t even have that “exuse” for being rude.
These people usually fall into two categories:
People who won’t believe my hair colour is a real colour for human hair.
People who like my hair.
The second group are met with a friendly negation, and usually a smile. The second are given a curt “no”, and a RL equivalent of an ignore.
(If I could be bothered, I’d chalenge them to fin a bottle of dye that would give a light-haired woman a dark-as-darkest-chocolate haircolour that turns to a deep bronze in fireligt. A rather neat effect . My fathers hair is red, and I just asume mine is too, buried under all that other pigment.)
(BTW, I believe everyone is alowed on vanity. Mine is my hair. Can you tell?)
This reminds me of the thread on being half-Jewish. I posted that I found it inappropriate and rude when, if the topic of my ethnicity came up, people would “show their deep smarts” by asking if it was my mother or father who was Jewish and then declaring whether I was “officially Jewish” based on their knowledge of the Jewish matriarchal progression. (FTR, I’m not).
Oy.
**Ellen Cherry ** - I love your response (“My privacy is more important to me than satisfying your idle curiousity”) and will plan to use it.
I guess we should never underestimate the capacity for your average conversationalist to be a clueless dweeb - ourselves included. I like to think I have not made any of the transgressions listed in this thread - certainly not recently or as an adult - but am convinced that I did countless times as a stoopid kid, solipsistic, clueless teen and an arrogant young adult.
I wonder how much of it is sheer, ill-mannered cluelessness and how much of it is trying to make fill-in-the-vacuum small talk and slipping into a dumb subject before you know it because talking about the weather has been exhausted?
This is what came to my mind immediately. When I was rather hugely pregnant, a woman stopped me in front of a bookstore and went on for about 20 minutes, just nattering away about my future son (I had a daughter) while my husband, and her husband and kids stood there. When she finally left, my sweetie and I looked at each other trying to figure out if the other knew who the heck she was. We didn’t.
Very, very bizarre. If nothing else, she made me very aware of what is and isn’t welcome to the ears of an expectant mom. Hint: advice is unwelcome. So are tales of your personal 327 hours of labor with no drugs.
I find both to be equally rude. A remark about hair color that would be a compliment is something like “Your hair is such a pretty color.” Asking outright whether it’s dyed goes beyond the boundaries of taste, IMHO. I might ask someone after I got to know her quite well, but I would never ask such a thing of a stranger.
**Aangelica ** “Oh don’t even get me started on the “are your boobs real” question.” I am suprised that none of our other Guy posters here have said the usual "Cite? ". (I am not asking for a “cite”, I am just saying that’s usually the response within a post or two)
I didn’t take time to read all the posts, but seriously, you need to start asking people, “Are you naturally rude, or do you practice?” Asking complete strangers personal questions about their bodies isn’t just rude, it’s arrogant as hell. People need to be really, really, really discouraged from asking such questions.
The worst one I ever heard was when I decided to try an auburn shade of haircolor, and a woman I know blurted out, “Did you mean for it to look like that?”
Oh and one night my Yahoo IM “dinged” and i got into a conversation with some male personage who wanted to know why I was on the Tall People list … Because I’m 6ft2
and you’re a woman? yes
are you sure? Well my gynaecologist said I was and he’s a doctor, so I didn’t like to argue…
have you alway been a woman? 'cept when I was a girl
but you can’t be! Why?
because no woman would be that tall naturally. You must have had a sex change op.
He continued to state there was no way I was a real female because it wasn’t possible for a woman to be so tall…
Good for you - as a guy who happens to dig tall women (my wife is 6’1" and her sisters and nieces are taller than you - and since I am 6’3" or so, I don’t want to guess how tall our daughter is going to be…) - sometimes you just have to ignore the idiots…
I used to be thinner, and I’m now quite happy with my weight and curves and everything. However there is one woman in my office who, while being reasonably thin herself, still feels the need to ask me “is that all you’re eating today? No wonder you’re so skinny!” every time she sees me eating anything.
She asked me this when I’m eating a bowl of yogurt at 8:30 in the morning.
She asked me this when I was eating 6 baby carrots at 3:00 in the afternoon. :dubious:
She’s a bit socially akward otherwise, and she seems to like me, so I’ve decided to just take it as a compliment. Saves my blood pressure.
Um…yep, I’m sure. As we’ve already discussed in the thread, the fellows in question can ask such things via a number of different ways. My particular favourites are:
“Hey, do the curtains match the carpet?”
and,
(looks me up and down slowly with a leer) So… is that your hair’s NATURAL colour?
and,
"So… (leer) is ALL your hair red?
I’d love to give these guys the benefit of the doubt, but I think you’ll agree there’s no doubt there whatsoever.
I too am one of the Pale People (it may have something to do with my Irish ancestry…maybe?).
My own mother (1/2 German, and tans very well, as does my sister) tells that I have the skin tone of a fresh corpse. My 1/4 German background gives me no tanning ability…I think I got screwed.
Also, Inappropriate…you owe me $0.25. I started that phrase about sunglasses.
I also had red hair as a child (which then went blond around age 10, and then went to my mud-colored hair nowadays around age 16 (yes, in High School)). Everyone from my High School thought I dyed my hair. Like I’d choose mud-brown!
This one gripes me. If I walked up to a woman and started speculating about what she was wearing under her dress (complete with jokes about shiny shoes), I’d get slapped or arrested. Why do women think it’s okay? I was hosting a Scottish gathering earlier this month and had three (non-Scot) women all gathered around me making comments. I thought one of them was actually going to lift my kilt. Sheesh.
I get the opposite: “Gee, you’re tall” or “How tall are you?” or “You’re a big guy, aren’t you?” (Really? I hadn’t noticed!) Generally, it doesn’t annoy me too much because I figure the person is just struggling for something to say, but it really does get old. I’m really annoyed by the people who tell me how wonderful it must be to be tall. Yes, I can paint the ceiling, but I couldn’t buy the house I wanted (the beams were too low) or the sports car I wanted (I just couldn’t fit–heck, there are full-size pickup trucks that aren’t high enough for me to sit up straight). And being tall is a joy when shopping for long-sleeve shirts. How many places have shirts on the rack with 17-1/2" neck and 38" sleeves?
:eek: I can’t even imagine asking a woman this. It boggles my mind that a stranger or casual acquaintance would do it. Is it men or women that ask?
I met a woman when I was in college that was 6’2" tall. After we chatted for a while, I mentioned that most tall women I know tend to wear flats (she was wearing 4" heels). She smiled and said that if guys had problems with tall women, she wanted to chase 'em away right from the get-go. I got a chuckle out of that.
Actually, I’m fond of my mammaries. I like the way they look, and don’t actually mind an admiring glance or two. Comes with the territory and as long as you’re not actually staring it’s flattering.
It’s the people who want to discuss whether or not my breasts are factory-issued or after-market who chap my ass.
Well, then, I *will *do the typical male thing and ask for a “cite”.
(That’s asking for a link to a photo- work safe, of course!) Carlyjay, Ok, #'s 1 and 3 are beyond defense. I am ashamed they are male. Maybe #2, maybe not.
. My fathers hair is red, and I just asume mine is too, buried under all that other pigment.)
". (I am not asking for a “cite”, I am just saying that’s usually the response within a post or two)