My mom and I were recently watching Wheel of Fortune when she asserted that she “would never root for a blonde girl.” Though this kind of remark is mild for her, I was still taken aback… mostly because I agreed and couldn’t explain why.
Just days later a friend was over, raving about his 22-year-old girlfriend—long and lithe, newly graduated, as blonde as they come. A bouncy, all-American dream in a Revolve co-ord set, she could tell me she was recruited for S.I. Swimsuit in Whole Foods and I wouldn’t bat an eye. I thought of our other friend whose girlfriend could be described almost identically and wondered, is this a thing?
Images of young trophies with sunny heads and fast metabolisms kept me up that night in a pit of shallow contemplation. I’d always thought myself ageless and playful, liked my darker features, and wasn’t totally bothered by the soft parts of my body. Yet suddenly I felt drab by comparison. Like I should drown myself in SPF and skip a few meals and start wearing bright colors to foster even a modicum of Blonde Vitality. How do they do it anyway, look alive in a way that makes under-eye bags and pale skin hot? It’s not that I don’t love blondes, because I do, it’s just that I think they’re out to get me… that they must drain unsuspecting brunettes of our youth to maintain their own.
I have an essay buried somewhere titled “All My Friends Are Blonde,” which I had, at one point, designated the titular piece for a book. It’s true, almost every single one of my best friends is some shade of platinum or honey. We stumble out of the UberXL and I feel like a coffee stain on a white Everlane t-shirt. Still, I can’t get enough of their nude manicures and shimmering tans, voices always on the edge of laughter, California mischief chasing tequila with green juice. I resent the appeal because I get it. I so fucking get it.
Research shows that by standards of approachability and courtship, men really do prefer blondes. They can appear “needier,” thus quelling the threat of rejection. Yesterday I was walking behind a statuesque blonde walking a husky on Sansom and I’d bet my life savings that she did not need a thing. I couldn’t find the courage to tell her she was queen of my world if just for that moment because I thought she might turn me to stone. Against all research, her beauty was distant and venomous. There’s a reason the fem-bots in Austin Powers are blonde: objects of desire are often fatal. And therein lies my personal quandary—that I wish to be some femme fatale who can arrest with a look, like my nameless muse on Sansom, but I fear my brown head (among other things) gets in the way. So much so that I’ve considered “going lighter for summer.” I am not a girl who “goes lighter for summer.”
Realistically, hair color is probably a meaningless attribute with little qualitative impact on true attraction. But that won’t keep me from staying up at night wondering if my future husband prefers blondes. Here are some of my favorite famous blondes in no particular order:
Dolly Parton
Meridith Blake, evil stepmom-to-be from the Lindsay Lohan Parent Trap
Jia Tolentino
Martha Stewart
Elizabeth Holmes
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen
Sky Ferreira
Rosamund Pike, especially in Gone Girl
Debbie Harry
JonBenét Ramsey
Nicki Minaj
Vera-Ellen and Rosemary Clooney in White Christmas
Pam Anderson
Angelina Jolie in Gone in 60 Seconds
This random ass model I saw in a Glossier YouTube video
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