Dear Abby: LW prefers just one blond

[cereta]

DEAR ABBY: My girlfriend bleached her hair blond for a special event, but recently changed it back to her natural black color. She turned me on even more as a blonde, but I'm not sure how to tell her. Would I be out of line to ask her to go blond again for me? -- LIKES HER BLOND IN NEW YORK

DEAR LIKES HER BLOND: The time for you to have raved about how much you liked her "new look" was before she went back to her natural color. For someone to go from dark to blond, then dark to blond again can be damaging to the hair -- not to mention expensive to maintain.

You can ask, I suppose. But she may not be willing to go along with it. And if that's the case, you're just going to have to love her the way God made her.

P.S. You could buy her a blond wig to wear on "special occasions."

Comments

[recessional]

. . . I am slightly bemused by the entire, like . . . *waves hand* everything here?

Like it does not seem to me all that either remarkable or fraught to go "hey you know when you were blond for [thing]? That was really, really hot and I am a big fan of you going blonde again if you ever want to."

This seems fairly straight forward. Then girlfriend decides whether or not that seems worth it to her, and everyone moves on with their lives?

So LW's treating it as "asking her to go blonde for me" and Abby's treating it like this is THE BIGGEST DEMAND EVER are both very odd to me. I dunno, maybe I'm weird.

[cereta]

Oh, good. I was perplexed by the seeming fraughtness of the whole thing.

[recessional]

I guess maybe . . . *squints at it, pokes* I suppose I have vaguely run into circles where "my boyfriend likes this" = "this is something I have to do in order to keep boyfriend", now that I think about it? They don't leap to mind because frankly I find them alien, but I have run into them.

So if he and Abby are both working from THAT model - one where for weird and fucked up reasons the request puts a HUGE IMPOSITION on girlfriend - then maybe it makes sense?

. . . I dunno, as I said, I find that entire CONCEPT of relationships so alien that I have no idea where the norms and lines run, now that I think about it. But it does exist, because now that I've thought about it I have had a number of conversations that more or less run:

"UGH, [random grooming or appearance-altering thing] is THE WORST."
" . . . so stop doing it?"
"I can't, my boyfriend likes [whatever]."
" . . . . ? But you hate it. So stop doing it."
"I can't do that."

[kaberett]

It's not being expected to be a request that can not be complied with with no harm done - it's expected to be a coded demand, and on top of that it's one that's parsed as "you as you are are not good enough". Where worth and contribution to a relationship is determined by attractiveness, "you're hotter with blonde hair" turns into "your purpose is to be attractive to me, all that determines this is your physical appearance, and you're not good enough without putting in significant effort".

(Shorthand because not proper keyboard.)

[azurelunatic]

There's also the possibility of racial aspects; sometimes "I find blonde girls more attractive" contains "I find white girls more attractive".

[recessional]

Yeah, like that part I do get, it's just because my entire gut-reaction to that is "what the fucking fuck why are you even WITH this person?" it's hard to gauge what kind of comments are or aren't going to fall under that.

[cereta]

I've run into that, too, which may be the paradigm people are seeing. I suppose I'm just so accustomed to people opining on my many-varied hair colors that it doesn't occur to me to see them as anything but just that: opinions. But that's my experience. I still think the comments at uexpress are more than a little pearl-clutching, especially over the wig suggestion.

[recessional]

I also think that social/cultural mode is, like, so unbelievably toxic that . . . words fail me, so even if that is the source of the pearl-clutching it's still messed up because we should be dismantling this, and you can't dismantle while endorsing. :P

[kaberett]

Oh yeah absolutely agreed :-p

[jadelennox]

Yeah, I was like, "hey, partner, that time you grew a bear was wicked hot!" And partner was like, "haha too bad because I hated the damn thing" and it wasn't fraught at all. Except man I wish he would grow a beard because it was hot.

[vass]

"hey, partner, that time you grew a bear was wicked hot!"

The best typo I have seen all week. I'm sure your partner looked great with a bear growing out of him, but I can certainly see how inconvenient it might have been for him.

[vass]

I think there's a big difference between "that thing was really hot and I'm a big fan of you doing it again if you want" and "please change your body for me."

In general, the whole request sounds like one of those things where the tone and the phrasing are hugely important in whether it's an okay thing to say or not.

[cereta]

I would agree very much. I don't think there's anything wrong with saying, "You know, I didn't say so at the time, but that hair color was super-flattering on you," versus saying, "I liked you better as a blonde." My spouse has made no bones about the fact that he likes my hair longer (and red), but he's very clear that it's my hair and my choice, and he finds me attractive with any hair.

[minoanmiss]

So true. Which is the kind of advice the advice columnist shoudl have given.

[cereta]

I'm posting this here because so many people in the comments seemed to think that (a) telling her he liked her hair blond was insulting, and (b)buying/suggesting a blond wig for sexy funtimes was demeaning, and I don't particularly get either. He's not saying he'd not attracted to her in her natural color, just that the blond hair added a little razz-a-ma-tazz. For all that, it may just be the novelty. I know that much lightning can be damaging to hair (boy, do I know it), but as long as he makes it clear that his attraction is not contingent on it, I don't see why he can't at least mention it.

As someone who is just beginning to grow out my natural color for the first time in fifteen years, I've never had a problem with anyone, let alone my husband, saying, "You know, I thought that red/blond/lighter/darker/pink hair was very flattering." She may not want to maintain it (or perhaps highlights would be a compromise?), but I don't get what the big deal is in casually saying, "You know, if you ever got the urge to color your hair again, I thought that blond was nice." And I *really* don't get why suggesting a blond wig is worse that buying sexy lingerie, as long as he's willing to do something for her during sexytimes.

[kaberett]

Yeah, I think the issue is not "if you ever get the urge..." but the cultural expectation that "you're hotter when you're blonde" means You Must Do This.

[azurelunatic]

Length is another factor in whether "hey, would you consider blonde again?" would be an insulting request, but if she was willing to bleach and re-dye, I'm suspecting her hair is not long enough that active breakage avoidance is a major part of her life.

[likeaduck]

I would be such a useless advice columnist, because my reaction is usually, "I don't know, do you think it's out of line?"/"You seem to think it might be, wanna talk about why?"...which is counter to format. More questions than answers.