But where can you meet such swarthy (or at least light-brunet) suitors? Where do dark-haired dudes hang out? It’s a question that has boggled the minds of scientists for millennia. Let’s break it down.
Who are dark-haired men in terms of heredity? Many have bloodlines that connect back to the Mediterranean, India, Africa, and the Caribbean. So a smart blonde (not an oxymoron!) would find herself at cultural gatherings for these groups—Italian street festivals, Caribbean parades, Indian restaurants, Greek Orthodox churches, Catholic masses, or your city’s own “Little Italy.” It’s a law of averages: There are simply more dark-haired potential partners at these types of events—they’re more concentrated—so you can chat up and be noticed by more of them than you would if you walked into a random pub. I’m nothing if not efficient in my dating rules.
If you don’t have the guts to storm a Greek Orthodox church service for the purpose of scouting “talent” (and I wouldn’t necessarily blame you—my strategies are pretty shameless), what are some other locations where you might meet dark-haired men? Dance clubs on the Jersey shore, the Sunglass Hut in your local mall, your local tanning salon, and nail salons that offer waxing services. Or really anywhere out in the world—they walk among us.
Dating any nonblond hair color is acceptable, though. Give redheads a spin! Test-drive a gray-haired dude who used to have brown hair. Go out with a bald but swarthy beauty! The options are limitless! Just do not engage in blonde-on-blond romance, or you and your mate will end up resembling the painful blond spectacle that was Hulk Hogan and his ex-wife. Or, worse, the brassiest blonds to never blow on a brass instrument, Dog the Bounty Hunter and his equally brassy wife and partner. As evidenced by these two couples, blonde-on-blond dating is not synonymous with class and taste.
My dreams of ending up with Ponch never came to fruition, in part because Ponch is a TV character and therefore not real, and in part because I was eight when I had a crush on him and even Appalachia won’t permit that type of generational mixing. But he did set the template for my ideal guy: tan, dark, and hardworking. To this day, I’ll take an overweight, hairy, brunet guy over a conventionally handsome blond guy every time. And you should, too, unless you want your family’s holiday cards to resemble promotional photos for Dog the Bounty Hunter.
PART FOUR
Blonde Friendship
CHAPTER 16
RULE: Have a Blondetourage
The world can be a harsh place for golden-haired goddesses, which is why blonde-on-blonde friendship is so important. Every light-haired lass should have an entourage of fellow blondes—a blondetourage—to help her make her way in the world today (after all, it takes everything you got79). You need a crew of friends because blonde backlash is a real phenomenon and it can be harsh. In pop culture, when a posse of blondes appears on screen (in film or television), it’s cinematic shorthand that sends the message: These are the characters you’re supposed to hate. The only way to explain this is to fall back on the thing I love best, second only to my hair, pop culture trivia.
To wit, we have the popular girls from the 1986 John Hughes film Pretty in Pink, all light-haired and all snobby, mean girls (before “mean girls” was even a thing). The movie’s protagonist, auburn-haired, working-class Andie (Molly Ringwald), is taunted by caramel-blonde rich girl Benny (Kate Vernon) and her wealthy bitch crew. Going back further in pop culture history, in 1978, John Landis directed National Lampoon’s Animal House, which gave us frigid blonde sorority girls Mandy (Mary Louise Weller) and Barbara Sue (Martha Smith). We first meet these beautiful blondes at the uptight Omega Theta Pi house, because of course these opportunistic, gold-digging blondes only date the rich, popular guys.80 The blondes don’t care if the big-man-on-campus guys are nice or share their interests, as blondes will date whoever happens to be popular at the moment, or so we learned from the Revenge of the Nerds film franchise. Beautiful, blonde cheerleader Betty (Julia Montgomery) is a collegiate triple threat: a cheerleader, a sorority sister, and the quarterback’s girlfriend. A hat trick of blonde stereotypes! During the course of the film, Betty works at a kissing booth but refuses to kiss a nerd (talk about bad customer service!), has sex with a nerd who she mistakes for her boyfriend (that’s effectively rape!), and is just as stunned as the audience when she ultimately falls in love with a nerd. Another surprising blonde-on-nerd love connection from 1980s cinema is found in an earlier John Hughes’s hit, Sixteen Candles (1984). While redheaded protagonist Sam (Molly Ringwald again) is pining after dark-haired leading man Jake Ryan (Michael Schoeffling), his stuck-up blonde prom queen girlfriend Caroline (Haviland Morris) is busy hosting a house party, getting her hair caught in a door, then letting an unlicensed driver take her parents’ Rolls-Royce for a spin. That unlicensed driver is geeky freshman Ted (Anthony Michael Hall), who Carolyn takes a liking to, proving that everyone can outgrow shallow high school cliques somewhat. The message seems to be that we’re all trapped in our respective high school roles and characterizations. Interestingly, Haviland Morris, who played the prom queen girlfriend Caroline, is actually a natural redhead and was asked to wear a blonde wig for the role. The filmmakers had a specific look in mind for the role of the irresponsible, snobby prom queen and it was blonde.
In pop culture, “blonde” is quite often synonymous with either “bitchy” or “bubbly”—mean girls or cute idiots (with cute idiots being played by the likes of Meg Ryan and Reese Witherspoon). Hell, there’s a band whose entire existence is based on their pride in having any hair color that isn’t blonde (4 Non Blondes). That’s some serious backlash.
Thankfully, some of that anti-blonde sentiment can be mitigated through good old-fashioned friendship. We find presentations of blonde friendship and loyalty in cinema, television, literature, and even in the real world.
In 1990s television, we saw a strong blonde-on-blonde friendship between Donna Martin (Tori Spelling) and Kelly Taylor (Jennie Garth) in Beverly Hills, 90210. Donna and Kelly remained best friends forever, and both actresses were part of the Beverly Hills, 90210 franchise for all ten years of the show’s existence. These platinum pals are lucky that their characters were never written out of the show with a story line about a move to London for drama school (cough—Shannen Doherty—cough). Donna and Kelly endured a lot together: Kelly’s mom’s alcoholism, Donna’s lame-o boyfriend David Silver, Donna’s abusive boyfriend Ray Pruit (who uttered the legendary line “Pruit with one T because that’s all my momma could afford”), the whole “Donna Martin Graduates” revolution (oh, suburban kids and their “causes”), Kelly’s nose job, Dylan and Kelly’s love affair during which he ditched Brenda (“Policy of Truth,” baby!), and the ladies’ shared Hermosa Beach bungalow. Not to mention enduring Steve’s awful hair, Brandon’s gambling problems, and Andrea’s bus rides over to the wrong side of the tracks.
If we consider the Sweet Valley High book series as “literature,” then blonde friendship is the centerpiece of a whole lot of literature. Starting in 1983, the (low-level) reading public got to follow blonde twin sisters Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield as they navigated every conceivable teenage and young adult situation known to man. Jessica and Elizabeth loved each other dearly, despite their vastly different personality types and the ups and downs of their relationship. These experiences occurred over the course of 181 books, if you can believe it. This barrage of books include 143 in the “core series” (the only core more intense than that is Eric Nies’s core circa The Grind), twelve Super Editions, nine Super Thrillers, five Super Stars, twelve Magna Editions, a few spin-offs, a series of prequels, and a TV show. In the TV show, Jessica and Elizabeth were played by twin sisters Brittany and Cynthia Daniel, who were Doublemint Twin models before they became TV stars.
A model of healthy, supportive, loyal, blonde-on-blonde female friendship comes to us from the most unexpected of places: season three of Bret Michaels’s reality TV dating show Rock of Love (VH1). Yes, this show lasted a full three seasons and yet somehow, Bret Michaels still n
ever found love on Rock of Love.81 Season three was quite literally a “departure” from the previous seasons as it mostly took place on tour buses as the show rolled through the highways and byways of America, mimicking Bret’s real life on the road.82 Seasons one and two had taken place in the same filth-laden mansion, but season three took the show on the road and was officially called Rock of Love Bus.
Season three was by far the best season, and it’s in large part thanks to blonde participants Farrah and Ashley. These two became fast friends on the show because of their myriad commonalities: Both women have breast implants, are tattooed, are (former or current) strippers, and are unapologetically pro-blonde. Of course, they aren’t just pro-blonde politically—they are both towheaded in real life, as well. Farrah and Ashley formed the crew that they named “the Blondetourage,” proving that, if nothing else, blondes can smush words together to make even better words. Another Rock of Love Bus contestant, Gia, was a short-lived member of the Blondetourage, and she wasn’t disqualified because of her two-tone hair (which would technically make her half a blonde and thus half a member of the Blondetourage—so at its roots,83 the Blondetourage was a crew of 2.5 blondes). Gia stood out from the hard-partying pack (which is a mighty feat) with her wild antics and excessive drinking, and Bret had to let her go. Or as Bret told Gia when he revoked her backstage pass during the elimination ceremony, “Your tour ends here.”
Thank goodness Ashley and Farrah made it through most of the season, or the American public would have missed out on some amazing blonde debauchery, pro-platinum propaganda, and classic quotes. Ashley, the more surly and deadpan of the duo, gave us some gems during the course of that show and in post-show interviews. She’s a proud blonde who always speaks her mind, and it often gets her in trouble. In that way, she reminds me of myself (though we differ in a few respects, namely that I am required to wear clothes at my job, and Ashley is required not to). In one episode, the girls played football in the mud and whichever girl was declared the game’s MVP would be rewarded with a one-on-one date with Bret. Boisterous blonde Ashley was especially eager to win that face time with Bret, saying, “I am going to do whatever it takes to win this MVP. Even if it means that I have to get muddy, so I look brunette.” Later, in a post-show interview on VH1’s blog, Ashley spoke about when she picked a fight with brunette Rock of Love contestant Marcia. When asked if she hated Marcia because of Marcia’s brown hair, Ashley responded, “It wasn’t really that. Marcia was obnoxious and a really drunk, annoying person. She just happened to have brown hair, but even if she had blonde hair, I still would have made fun of her.” So the Blondetourage from Rock of Love Bus isn’t founded on a complete hatred of all nonblondes. If you’re an annoying drunk, even a head of blonde hair can’t save you from their wrath.
On a more serious note, though (as serious as you can get about a competition in which strippers vie for the affections of an aging rock star), watching Farrah and Ashley’s friendship grow and blossom during the course of the season was heartwarming and hilarious. In the world of reality TV, where the drunk and dysfunctional willingly lock themselves in L.A. McMansions for weeks at a time and insist that they “didn’t come here to make friends,” it was surprising and sweet to watch such a genuine, loyal friendship blossom between Farrah and Ashley, like a dandelion growing through a tiny crack in the asphalt, against all odds. The Blondetourage knows what we all should know: that blondes need to back each other up. Today’s blondes should cast off the outdated model of mean girl blondes and instead be kind to others, support blondes and nonblondes alike, and, above all, never be bullies.
Within the realm of female friendship, blonde-on-blonde friendship is important because no one understands blonde issues quite like a fellow blonde. A sister in blondeness understands why you occasionally use purple shampoo (to keep your color from getting brassy), why you never dunk your head in a chlorinated pool (it could ruin your color and you’d end up with a green tint), why you wear a scarf on your head at the beach (again, to protect your color), and why you rarely wear shirts that are yellow (clashes with hair color).
I have been the lucky participant in a lifelong blonde-on-blonde friendship with a pal who is like a sister/soul mate to me: my best friend, Suzanne.84 We’ve been besties since our mothers put us in a playgroup together, through nursery school, grades K through 12, and still to this day. We lived together during our wild twenties in South Boston, and I was a bridesmaid in her wedding a few years back. She married a wonderful guy who I went to college with, and whenever I’m home in Boston, the first order of business is to catch up with my family and Suz. She has fantastic platinum hair, and we regularly text about roots, our colorists, and being blonde (among other family updates, thoughts, and general shit-talking). She has had my back since playgroup, and we have seen each other at our best and at our worst. This story, dear readers, is an example of when I was at my worst.
During our respective freshman years of college, Suzanne and I both acquired ID cards to get into twenty-one-and-older bars. Mine was from a batch that was made by an acquaintance at my college, Hamilton. He cranked out about twenty fake IDs for the majority of my sorority pledge class and dozens more for other underage students. He had quite a setup: backdrop and camera, laminating machine, the whole shebang. All of the IDs were Maine state ID cards, each with a real photo of the person, a fake birth date, and a fake hometown of Limestone, Maine. Yes, everyone who got a fake ID from this guy was supposedly from Limestone, Maine. All of us. It was terrible when ladies from my sorority pledge class went out to bars together and tried to use these ID cards at the two bars downtown. What were the chances that a posse of twenty gals from Limestone, Maine, had driven eight hours to Clinton, New York, for a night on the town?85 But when I was home in Boston for the summer (without nineteen of my closest Limestone pals), the ol’ Limestone, Maine, ID card worked wonders. I had memorized everything—my fake birthday, my astrological sign based on that birthday, and, just in case the bouncer was a real stickler, I’d even memorized a few tidbits about growing up in Maine.86 An unfortunate fact that I learned pretty quickly is that Limestone, Maine, is a tiny town of about two thousand people and it’s almost exclusively a location for Phish shows. Claiming to live in Limestone, Maine, is like a rural version of saying that you live in Madison Square Garden. Fortunately, most Boston bar bouncers aren’t well versed in their Maine geography and history, so the Limestone, Maine, fake ID was a ticket to partying for a few summers. Suzanne had hit underage fake ID mecca: She scored a real ID card from an older girl in her sorority. It resembled her enough, in that the ID’s real owner was also pretty and blonde.
When we’d go out to use our fake IDs in downtown Boston, Suzanne and I would be vigilant about “acting over twenty-one.” We had a very specific way that we thought people over the age of twenty-one acted, and we thought that playing the twenty-one-and-over role masterfully was the key to public drinking. Being twenty-one meant ordering drinks as though you have ordered a million drinks in your life—just super blasé. You’re a twenty-one-year-old gal on the town! Who cares? No biggie. Cop a little attitude. Recite a drink order in a way that shows just how over twenty-one you are. Another part of our twenty-one-and-over exercise in overanalysis was that Suzanne and I would dress in professional-looking clothing. Based on our work attire, the waiter would be able to tell that we’d just come from our nine-to-five, postcollege, real-world jobs because we were over twenty-one. We were doing it just like Huey Lewis and the News used to croon, “workin’ for a living.” This was our scheme.
That summer we both were working for a living, just as Huey Lewis had said. Suzanne was a lifeguard at a pool near our hometown, and I spent my days working as a temp for a hotel chain that is featured in countless rap songs: the Holiday Inn. I was the “gal Friday” in the catering and corporate sales department of the Holiday Inn right next to the last stop (Riverside) on a branch of Boston’s public transportation, the T. It was a pretty clutch location—
walking distance to the T, so easy access to Boston. Late one summer afternoon, I cut out of work a few hours early and Suzanne and I headed into Boston in search of cocktails. Suzanne drove to the T station in Newton (next to my place of employment), parked her mom’s beautiful Saab (which had become Suzanne’s recently), and met up with me on the train platform, and soon we were Boston-bound. Our big plan was to walk around Newbury Street and shop, then get some drinks with dinner. Suz and I had our fake IDs, were dressed up, and had already carefully planned how we’d order our cocktails. At the appointed time, we’d casually say to the waiter, “Margarita on the rocks with salt,” and this blasé recitation would show that we were obviously over twenty-one. We knew the lingo! We knew exactly how we liked our margaritas—the waiter would know that this wasn’t our first time at the rodeo. We were over-twenty-one gals just having dinner after a day’s work.
As the late afternoon sun bounced off the expensive cars parked along Newbury Street, Suzanne and I walked down the brick sidewalks and thought about how we could use adult lingo to get cocktails into our eighteen-year-old mouths.
The New Rules for Blondes Page 16