Hear, hear!
Personal space is also an important part of being human.
The workplace or office environment is a bit more formal than home environment. I mostly don’t know these people outside of work (with a few exceptions) and I wouldn’t appreciate being touched in that way. It would just be creepy and invasive and uncomfortably familiar.
People can be clueless idiots. Hope you’re able to find a way to ask them to stop monstro. Good luck.
js_africanus, would you like to return to the thread and justify why you think being touched by casual work acquaintances is OK? Or apologize to me for implying I have some kind of problem? I’m rather offended.
I’m getting heebie-jeebies just thinking about this now.
Here’s a theory that I just made up. How about “if you have to ask permission (to touch someone else’s hair) than you shouldn’t be touching it in the first place, so don’t ask?”
IOW, like “if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it”–it means that there is a degree of intimacy in hairtouching–either across genders or same sex–that means that the barriers to touching are assumed UNTIL a personal relationship is established.
I touch my children’s hair all the time; my hsuband’s (what’s left of it) and my own. Nobody else’s, ever-at work, at home, out at noc, etc–never.
afterthought: hairtouching is common kindergarten behavior–especially very long thick hair or excessively curly hair. It’s called low impulse control and is somewhat acceptable in the 5 year old set. We left the sandbox a long time ago, no?
I think he pulled a hit and run on us. Maybe we should seek counseling.
Hah! Maybe we have deeper problems…we need him to tell us, of course.
Just be like “stop fucking touching me”.
And js_africanus, the right to not having some douchebag put his grubby meathooks on me while I’m working…or at all for that matter…is also an important part of being human.
Absolute agreement on the ‘don’t touch beyond handshakes’ rule for offices. Oh, one minor exception: when someone is working with you on something displayed on the monitor, and s/he’s leaning over your shoulder to point at something, I don’t mind if they rest the other hand on your shoulder – more a ‘stabilizing’ thing in that case.
However… as the owner of string-straight hair, I gotta confess I’ve always wanted to pat an afro. Just once, for curiosity’s sake – are they really as soft and springy as they look? I even started to ask friends a couple of times, but always my better self stopped me. (Or else I chickened out.)
At least I married a man with very curly hair, and HE doesn’t mind me playing with it. 
Jesus, what is this? People with hair different than yours are not toys! When I wanted to touch blonde hair I was 8, and my parents bought me a barbie doll!
I’m not yelling at you, I just don’t get this mindset. 
Are too! My husband is my very favorite toy… ahem.
Anyway, in my case, at least, it’s got nothing to do with luck or whatever, it’s a purely tactile curiosity. There’s nothing special about my wanting to touch an afro – I always want to touch anything that looks like it has a different texture. I run my fingers through sand, I touch ‘test’ the springiness/harshness of hairbrushes when I shop for them, I run my along along -very very lightly- the soft green new growth on our yew hedges, I squeeze cotton balls. (But only real ones, the synthetic kind make nasty ‘scrunches’.) As for stores that sell material for sewing…I’m lost for hours. So many, many different textures!
One of my favorite possessions is a koosh ball. I don’t play games with it, or juggle or any ‘sensible’ way of using the thing. I just like to hold it on my palms sometimes. The touch of all those little rubber tubes…it’s unlike anything else. It’s just feels neat.
Well, that won’t do: doll hair is nothing like real hair. 
I don’t think I can explain the drive/curiosity any clearer than I just did – some of us just feel the need to explore the physical world through touch as well as sight.
Are you serious?
What should I say? It sounds like you think I shouldn’t be. I’m either supposed to justify myself or say I wasn’t serious.
I was half-joking.
I don’t like people doing a lot of touching me, either, unless they are friends. If I were in monstro’s shoes, I’d’a had to restrain myself from whipping around and sinking my teeth into her co-workers’ hands with the swiftness of a cobra on speed. Seriously. It sets off something primal and rabies-infested in me. I could probably murder a person with my bare hands if they tapped me on the arm one too many times. Who knows what I could do if they touched me on my head.
monstro, next time they take liberties with your person like that, tell them point blank that it is NOT appreciated. You are not some goddamned bunny rabbit and you are not working in no goddamned petting zoo. Ask them if they realize that in a tone of voice that suggests you’re not sure quite that they do. You were not hired to be anyone’s goddamned Buddha, lucky mascot, or Chia pet, either. You are a scientist who expects to be treated as such. Their grubby mitts have no place in or on your hair.
If they are still so dumb that they persist in their ways, stick some well-placed pins in your hair. Lots of them .
Looks like we are drifting into the areas of OCD and impulse control.
I am a compulsive reader–I will read stuff anywhere, and if there is nothing else, I will try to (surreptiously) read your newspaper that you are holding upside down.
This is my problem and I do control myself.
Some people are more tactile than others–that’s fine, but boundaries must be recognized, especially when the person whom you want to touch is in a lower position than you in the workforce–would you want to touch your boss’ hair so urgently?
For minorities it must be worse–there is a legacy there that has been alluded to already.
Keep your hands to yourself, and maybe one day, once you know the person very well, you may admit to your curiousity in a non-public setting and they will let you touch their freaking hair.
But don’t count on it.
Good gad, a person of Color who bit a White Guy would need shots.
Lots of 'em.
Go for the curare needles. Poison dart frogs would be cool, but you have to have the special South American ants for them to develop serious poison, and it’s difficult to handle them and extract the poison from their slime.
Now, if you could convince the White Guy that patting the frog was good luck, we might be able to go with them.
I’m not sure I buy the explaination in the article. He may have done it for an equally stupid, yet not particularly racist reason: rubbing a bald person’s head is “lucky.” :rolleyes: Or maybe a bald black person’s head is doubly lucky. hmph.
Dunno. People do it to me all the frickin time, though. I think there’s something about the sight of long wavy red hair that causes the rational parts of people’s brains to shut down, because they sure don’t seem to be thinking when they reach for my hair. Given I don’t really like to be touched in general, this doesn’t make me happy. Actually, since this has been something people have done my entire life (It’s usually been adults too! it wasn’t other kids doing it when I was young) maybe it’s why I don’t like to be touched… Don’t touch people’s hair without permission, dammit.
I’m a tactile person too, but with intact impluse control, so while it’s okay to feel the clothes/stuffed animals/fabrics/bedding etc I pass in a store, I know not okay to touch the employees or other shoppers.
I chickened out.
Today it happened again. I thought about saying something, but I didn’t know what to say without sounding mean or uptight. I actually do care how my coworkers view me. I don’t want to hurt their feelings or come across as an uber-bitch, especially since there aren’t that many women around in the lab (and no black people, which goes without saying).
One of the coworkers told me that I’m the most popular person in the lab because I’m so easygoing and funny. So maybe the head-patting isn’t so much a patronizing move, but more of “you’re a real pal, monstro” kind of gesture. :shrug:
I think people mistakingly believe that afros are spongy. They aren’t. They are easily mussed. My hair is furry in some places (I have multi-textured hair), and if someone rubs it “against the grain”, it will get all messed up. On the crown of my head, the hair is thinner and more delicate. If you touch my head there, the hair will be compressed and not bounce back. It will make me look funny.
But yes, my hair is soft. It’s just as soft as anyone else’s.
I don’t think my hair is to “blame” for all this head-touching anyway. On the day everyone kept touching my head, I was wearing a head scarf because I was having a bad hair day. No one could even see my hair.
Forgive me, but how does it come to pass that it goes without saying?
OMG! I just realized that I did this to a woman last week!
Well, I didn’t pat her head. I was in this tiny tourist shop, and a black woman with the most beautiful and unusual hair was about to pass me in the aisle. As she got closer, I realized that her hair had been bent in 1/2" L-shaped chunks from top to bottom, strand by strand. Truly, it was amazing. As we went to pass each other, I said, “Your hair is beautiful!” and then, before I could stop myself, I asked, “Can I touch it?”
Yah, I know. I can’t believe I did it either.
Without hesitation, she said, “Sure,” and she stood there for about 10 seconds while I looked at it closely.
It was very, VERY nice of her.
I should clarify that it’s not as though I’ve never seen a black person’s hair before: My half-sister is black, and I dated a black man for a time. But her hair was crimped in a most unusual and attractive way!
Monstro, what if you joked back with them? Gave them a dose of their own medicine, if you will? What if you said something like, “Wait, where you going? Get back here so I can rub your belly!” Or, “Yes, women find me irresistable.” Or, “Since you enjoy touching me so much, how about a foot massage?”