Keep Your Mitts off My Mane!
by Jemima
Mar 26, 2007
Family parties are usually not the greatest joy for me, but this one I went
to because it wasn't just family. I figured some of my family's
obnoxiousness would be diluted somewhat with other guests present. I was
right, but what I had not taken into account was the obnoxiousness of the
guests in question.
I spent a day with people CONSTANTLY TOUCHING MY HAIR!!!
What is it, people? What is it that makes it alright for everyone to go
stick their hands into my hair when asking what I did with it? What is it?
Does it say "Touch me" somewhere on my mane? This is not one of those
battery driven toys with a "Try me" button! I am a living breathing human
being with a frigging personal sphere. Get it? Apparently not.
I thought it was just my own generation who did it. My generation of "hugs
all around whether you're familiar with people or not". I hate it, hugs are
supposed to mean something and not to be given out to just anyone.
Especially when you don't know whether that someone might actually not like
getting physically close to people they don't know. But no. It's not just my
generation. My grandmother whose birthday party it was is a former school
teacher and many of her former colleagues had been invited to this party.
Now, the majority of these were above 60 if not all of them, and for some
reason I had the naïve notion that people above 50 have some sense of
propriety. But that was not the case. No. The amount of people who put their
hands in my hair BEFORE they even struck up a conversation by asking me what
I'd done with it was simply astounding. These are well-educated, supposedly
civilized elderly people. You'd think life had taught them something about
people and how to properly behave. But no.
How many times have I not out of the blue felt a hand sliding down my back
along my hair followed by the line: "Ohhhh your hair looked so soft, I just
had to touch it!" No. You. Didn't. You CHOSE to touch it, and it was bloody
rude of you. Gods, if I could figure out how this mind-control device that's
apparently embedded in my hair works, I might actually use it for more
practical purposes than compelling people to touch me.
It is driving me insane. How the fuck do you let people know not to fucking
touch you before they've been given the all clear? On one hand I don't want
to cause a scene at a loved one's birthday party. But this was a frigging
pestilence. I devised a nifty strategy of telling them what I did with my
hair by using extensive gestures around my hair and head thus waving their
own paws away, but that only stops the hands not yet in my hair. It doesn't
prevent people from sneaking up from behind and placing their sticky
food-smeared hands into my newly washed hair. It is fucking disgusting,
people, we've just had dinner - I don't want paté in my hair.
I have issues with being touched. I hardly ever even touch the people I call
my friends. I am generally not a 'touchy' person - pun intended. That people
cannot know that I get more agitated by this than your average person is
something I understand fully. People usually get a second chance. Unless -
and that's a fucking huge exception - unless they walk up to me and before
having introduced themselves or even struck up a conversation they put their
hands in my hair as if it's a petting zoo.
Guess what? IT'S NOT!
If you see someone whose boobs or buttocks are just looking smashing today
you don't go grope them and then ask what they've done to make them look
like that! (Okay, some assholes might, according to another rant on this
site - never happened to me, though, thankfully) If you ask at all you do it
without the touching, and you usually introduce yourself first - or at least
your intentions! Why is hair different? Is my hair less a part of me than my
boobs. Doesn't my hair count as mine? Is my hair no longer mine when you
begin to find it fascinating enough?
So many parents tell their children the rule of "Look but don't touch" but
do people have any idea how many adults are unable to live by this rule?
LOOK BUT DON'T TOUCH, YOU MORONS. It also goes for adults. If it's bad for
children to do it, it's doubly bad for adults, because they at least should
be expected to know better. Is it any wonder kids don't do what we tell
them? WE don't do what we tell them!!!
Bottom line: Stop bloody well touching people uninvited - EVEN if it's
"just" their hair!
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