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I've never considered myself "pretty", although I'm more secure now than I was as a teenager. I seriously thought I was a mutant or something and was extremely self-conscious. Looking back, I'm sure it was my insecurity that led to my unattractiveness, or at least my perception.
Last summer, I got a box of pictures out of storage that I hadn't seen in years, including my senior portrait. My daughters commented on how pretty I was and I was literally speechless for a moment. I certainly never thought of myself as attractive, although looking back, I know that I wasn't the gorgon I remembered myself being.
I do remember the first time I was hit on, though. I was with my brother in a pizza restaurant while he was home on leave from the Marines...I was just barely out of high school. I got completely flustered and almost ran out of the place crying. My brother basically told me to get used to it.
It's also interesting that I got hit on more when I was pregnant than any other time in my life... I found that very strange. When I was married and not-pregnant, I never got hit on, but that's most likely because I was always with my husband and/or children. Since I've been single again, it happens a bit, but as I said, I'm pretty oblivious, probably because I'm not looking for it.
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
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My hair's light brown at the moment, but that's because it's finally grown out after the last time I dyed it. Guys hit on me, but not so much now as they did when I had darker hair. Strange.
And hardly anyone looked twice at me when I buzzed it all down to half an inch, though I couldn't tell you why...
Posts: 36 | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:I got completely flustered and almost ran out of the place crying.
Reminds me of my emotional response the one time I got hit on working register at KFC at about 17 years old.
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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My hair's white-blond. Two years ago, I worked at a Barnes & Noble and I got hit on a lot. I think it had a lot to do with having to dress nicely for that job and constantly interacting with new people. For the most part I found it very flattering as it was polite guys asking me to call them or go on a date. Other than that though, I have never felt that a guy I didn't know was trying to pick me up. However, my ex-boyfriend used to insist that strange guys flirted with me regularly. So, who knows.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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I have light to medium brown hair and I get hit on - not frequently, but not rarely, either. I also tend to got have periods where every other guy I see hits on me, followed by months of nothing.
And there do tend to be a few 'types' who like to hit on me, for instance, gas station attendants/mechanics and Mexican taxi drivers (seriously, 3 hit on me my first day in Mexico!).
Posts: 959 | Registered: Jan 2002
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What I'm interested in is whether the length of hair affects the frequency of guys picking up on a lady. I have long, thick hair and so many people (even women) comment on it or look at it, and I think I am ten times more attractive with long hair than with short hair.
Posts: 308 | Registered: Sep 2005
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I definately got lots more comments on my hair when it was long. And my hair was long when I worked at Barnes & Noble. Maybe you're on to something. Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Brunette with silver, uh, highlights.
That would describe me, though now I'm more silver than brunette.
When I was younger, guys used to pick up on me quite a lot, but I think the attraction was more my figure than my hair color.
Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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quote:However, my ex-boyfriend used to insist that strange guys flirted with me regularly.
The same boyfriend who was trying to choose between me and my roommate to ask out later would tell me, "That guy (who just walked by) was checking you out." I still wonder how much of it was his own tendancy towards jealousy, but at the time it made me feel good about myself. In general, dating him was the first time I ever dared think that maybe, just maybe, I could be "sexy."
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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Beverly, may I point out that your coloring sounds remarkably similar to that of Vivien Leigh, who IMO was one of the most gorgeous women ever. I really like the dark hair/light eyes combo.
As for me, I have dark brown hair, brown eyes, and pale-ish olive-ish skin (I'm Asian/Celtic). I get hit on a fair amount, but I can also be rather oblivious sometimes - the guy usually has to be pretty obvious for me to realize I'm being hit on.
Posts: 952 | Registered: Jun 2005
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I've never been told I look like Vivien, but I've gotten Linda Carter and Jennifer Connely. Though the resemblence stops below the neck. Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:Originally posted by beverly: The same boyfriend who was trying to choose between me and my roommate to ask out later would tell me, "That guy (who just walked by) was checking you out."
According to my friends, this happens to me a lot too, and I'm almost always like, "What guy?" I hardly ever notice people - I'm usually too busy looking at buildings, the sky, pigeons, street signs, store windows, or any number of random things.
Posts: 952 | Registered: Jun 2005
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I usually assume that the girls I find attractive and personable are taken, them being attractive and personable and all. Maybe I should ask....
I most definately do not use that as an excuse to remain the socially uncomfortable loner that I am not.
Posts: 1156 | Registered: Jan 2004
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Airmanfour, go for it! Just be tactful. At the very least, they will be flattered and feel better about themselves. They may not "take you up on it", but you will have done something nice for them.
Nell, I have talked to girls that always seem to know when guys are checking them out. It's like a Spidey Sense.
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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I am wondering how one can be oblivious to being hit on. I sometimes pretend not to notice, but I'm usually aware of the men looking or flirting. Could it be that the type of man who hits on me is more obvious? Or that my generation is more keenly aware of sexuality? Or am I just a single-minded sex robot?
Edit- Or... Am I a superhero?
Posts: 308 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Could it be that the type of man who hits on me is more obvious?
Or maybe the suggestion that guys pick up on me/check me out and I don't notice is wishful thinking at best.
Edit: On a side note, I was in the mall yesterday. I actually didn't have a child on me (though I was walking briskly to pick up my son from the play area.) A guy caught my eye and said, "How's it going?" I was so taken aback that all I could do was smile and nod as I hurried on.
The thought went through my mind, "Did he say that because he thought I was cute? Or is he just being friendly because he is selling something? Would guys pick up on me a lot more if I didn't have kids crawling all over me all the time?"
If I was used to guys picking up on me, I may have just assumed that that is what he was doing. But because it doesn't happen to me, I was surprised and tried to find excuses for why it happened.
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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El Jay: That was a rough estimate...heh, yeah a little excessive. As I have never dyed my hair, I don't know how often you have to "upkeep", but I do know that it's more frequently than not and fairly pricey.
I just think a some guys realize that a lot of blonde hair isn't natural and I would assume that natural beauty is the most appealing (it is for me at least). I can't see how they can only see *blonde* yet ignore the roots on top...
Posts: 484 | Registered: Feb 2006
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quote:I can't see how they can only see *blonde* yet ignore the roots on top...
When have we ever made the case that the average man is sensible?
On that note, I remember talking with a guy at singles dance and he actually said that he won't ask a woman to dance unless her nails are painted and manicured. That really threw me for a loop.
:looks at rough, far-from-manicured hands:
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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If they're catcalling, whistling, or trying to use cheesy lines, I notice those (and laugh at them in disbelief). But if they're just Looking without saying anything, or saying something more subtle than "Hey, baby" or "You're really cute," I'll usually completely miss it. Maybe I'll realize what happened hours after the fact.
I don't know what it is. I just never expect it, so even when I do notice, I'm always caught off-guard. Posts: 952 | Registered: Jun 2005
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The most frequent I'm aware of is once a month. Your hair grows about a half-inch a month. And you can get a color for $20, easy, although I've only done that once. Usually if I'm coloring my hair I'm doing it myself, for $3/bottle. Although my hair is long enough now that I need two bottles. It ain't exactly a pricy thing unless you want it to be. (And I do it maybe every-other month, but I'm currently just adding a bit of red, so the roots aren't as obvious as someone going blonde.)
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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I dislike fake blondness, it's pretty much a declaration of dissatisfaction, and who needs that?
It's all perception, some people give off the accessable vibe, and some don't. I, for one, when in an environment I'm not comfortable with (everywhere that I don't know the people I'm dealing with) come off as standoffish. It might not have anything to do with the way you look.
Posts: 1156 | Registered: Jan 2004
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Well I spend upwards of $500 on my hair in a 6 month period, which I'm sure is frightening to some men. And that's lowballing it.
Posts: 308 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:It might not have anything to do with the way you look.
Well, it isn't so much how *you* deal with me, but how that guy over there who *does* catcall girls deals with me. If that makes any kind of sense.
Again, if some guy *did* catcall me, it would probably scare me out of my skin. But it won't stop me from wondering why it doesn't happen.
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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quote:Originally posted by jennabean: Well I spend upwards of $500 on my hair in a 6 month period, which I'm sure is frightening to some men. And that's lowballing it.
Wow. What do you have done to it?
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:Originally posted by airmanfour: I dislike fake blondness, it's pretty much a declaration of dissatisfaction, and who needs that?
What about women who habitually dye their hair different colors and love every style? The mind of the female is a complex thing... you can infer nothing .
Posts: 308 | Registered: Sep 2005
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beverly - i have two pretty good friends I consider pretty darn smoking, one of whom I hung out with in California, and was a continual topic of conversation with guys wondering if I was going out with her, and if I wasn't, how they could. She never got catcalled. Another I started hanging out with in GA, and while I don't consider her quite as attractive as the other, she does get catcalled. I think its the way people see them. Or maybe it's geographical.
They both have pretty dark hair.
Posts: 1156 | Registered: Jan 2004
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Yeah, you're right, jennabean. The motives of women are not to be inferred by the likes of me, and out of respect for the complexity of womenkind I withdraw the quoted statement.
Posts: 1156 | Registered: Jan 2004
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Noemon, I get my hair straightened. The only exception to that was when I lived in Canada where it was drier and it wasn't really necessary. Living in Hawaii (HUMIDITY) does awful things to wavy hair like mine. On top of that, there are hair cuts (about every six weeks?) and deep conditioning and sometimes I have bad days and just feel like spending an hour with my hair stylist chopping six inches off my hair. Then I have something worth crying about. That was probably more than you wanted to know.
airmanfour, it happens to the best of us. We think we understand women, and then... you wake up and your car and all the chocolate in the house is gone, never to be seen again. Posts: 308 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote: I am wondering how one can be oblivious to being hit on.
I can assure you it's quite possible, particularly if you are an engineer of either gender.
*sigh* While it has happened several times in varying degrees... I have a vivid memory in 8th grade... I was at a church youth group, and they were divided up into smaller groups, and I ended up the only girl in a group of guys, because the other girls in my group didn't show that night.
I would come in, with a hair dryer, cause I'd have just gotten out of swim practice, and we'd go outside and have sports activities later in the evening and otherwise I'd freeze.
Anyway, after my hair was dry and I'd said the appropriate bible verses I was supposed to have memorized for the night, we were basically sitting around and b.s.ing. The boys started asking me science questions. They knew I was going to college. The stuff I was learning was so cool. I mistakenly thought they actually wanted to know. They were asking questions and I was going into long explanations about chemical bonding geometries and pi orbitals and the like. The group leader had gone to the bathroom and when she came back, she let it continue on for a while. But then she cut the boys off. "Stop flirting with AJ!" she said.
Stupid me. It never had crossed my mind that's what they were doing. Like an 8th grade boy would actually care about pi orbitals...
posted
Painful that you were unaware of their fond interest, or painful because you were embarrassed? (Or a third option?)
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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More the embarrasment I think. And while they were actually flirting in their own 8th grade boy way, it was a little bit mean on their parts too. But, really we didn't have a lot in common to talk about. They were generally more accepting of me than the girls in that group. I at least got respect for brains and atheletic endurance as well as brute strength even if I was a klutz. I'd transferred in to a different church's youth group with the same program between 7th and 8th grades, and jumping into an established group at that age isn't always pleasant.
(On a youth group van trip later that year they (the boys) were in the back and I was in the front, and they opened up my duffel bag and rummaged around in it. They made it to the very bottom, past all my underwear and lingere, because all of a sudden my Big Bird blanket which was carefully and tenderly buried at the very bottom so no one would know it was there, came hurtling up to the front of the van.)
posted
There have been times where I knew I was being hit on, several of which were enjoyable. But it came with context also. It's much more obvious from random strangers than people you partially know.
I'd also say, I'm generally better at vapid flirting now, even though I'm happily attached, than I was then.
quote:(On a youth group van trip later that year they (the boys) were in the back and I was in the front, and they opened up my duffel bag and rummaged around in it. They made it to the very bottom, past all my underwear and lingere, because all of a sudden my Big Bird blanket which was carefully and tenderly buried at the very bottom so no one would know it was there, came hurtling up to the front of the van.)
I guess this is the hazing part of flirting.. Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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I'm a brunette and never been flirted with. Probably because I'm painfully shy and tend to hide from people.
Posts: 1215 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Almost never these days; every so often when I was at UCLA.
I think a lot of it has to do with opportunity. These days I generally don't ride buses, don't hang out on college campuses, and rarely just "go for a walk" (as opposed to walking TO a place, often quickly).
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I'm Asian, and maybe that's a new category. I've never categorized myself as "brunette." That just never seemed right. Ooh, and I have long hair, and I'm in the process of growing it even longer.
I don't get hit on constantly, but it's not infrequent. My guy friends tell me that I'm pretty unapproachable. I like it that way because I despise being hit on. My ego is already big enough, thank you very much.
Now, if you want to come over and talk, I'll be perfectly open to that.
Posts: 866 | Registered: Aug 2005
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Dark Brunette, and it happens. It never happens when I'm with my Beloved or the kids, but I went to a restaurant with a friend and the waiter did everything but cut up my food for me. O_O He kept touching my shoulder and smiling. And I got a LOT of Coke refils when I didn't ask for them.
Thing is, I think it has to be that unsubtle for it to even register. I read this thread before going grocery shopping and taking the boys to martial arts, so I was trying to pay attention. The checkout guy at BJ's was smiley and personable. Outgoing, casual and joked with me a bit about having a day. It was a bad for grocery shopping and stuff, because it is Social Security check day. I was run over or glared at by grumpy old people at least four times.
Anyway, I don't think BJ's guy was "picking up" on me.
Everyone at the regular grocery store was harried, but still super nice and helpful (can you BELIEVE there weren't any roasted hazelnuts - they don't carry them But two people helped me look)
A young guy came into dojang and started talking to me. He was a black belt but had been out of it for years because he took up skateboarding, and had had chicken pox twice. Funny things people tell you. *shrug* I don't know what he was waiting on, because he didn't have kids there. Also, he knew I had kids because one of mine had been kicked out of class during the stretches (I think he was singing) and was sitting next to me.
I don't think either one was being flirty, though. I wouldn't have even considered the possibility if this thread hadn't got me wondering about it.
Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:I don't think either one was being flirty, though. I wouldn't have even considered the possibility if this thread hadn't got me wondering about it.
Because of my insecurities, if a guy I encounter on errands is "chatty" with me, I assume it is because he is trying to be friendly to customers in general--that it has nothing to do with me.
Posts: 7050 | Registered: Feb 2004
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I haven't been hit on in person in months. But I have dark brown hair.
Like Kate, it usually happens when I'm singing; I'm not very approachable otherwise. I mean, I am but I don't look it.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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An aside: This thread has been fantastic for me. I'm finally figuring out who's male and who's female.
Posts: 866 | Registered: Aug 2005
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