The Member Spotlight:
September 2001 Edition

If you are interested in filling out the survey,
you can log into the Members Area to do so.

Lady Eileen
Redheads do relate to each other better than they do with anyone else because we have all had similar experiences. This unspoken bond was especially true this last year when I got a red head roommate at school. (Pendragon for you people of the Realm). Other students and faculty thought the administration had lost their marbles for rooming up together but it worked out remarkably well. We never even had a fight!

Peggy
Being a natural redhead from parents without a hint of red to them was always jokingly referred to "it must have been the milkman" or someone else they might have thought of. In school I was the only redhead in class so of course I was singled out if anything happened. I was teased and it didn't help the matter much when Kool-aid came out with the freckled-faced strawberry flavor, that became a favorite tool of teasing, especially when I blushed and as we all know, redheads turn redder then their hair. The worse thing in my teens was the fact that I didn't tan, living in Southern California and not having a tan was just plain out freaky to a lot of people. Now that I am older I just don't care if I have white legs that makes others put on their sunglasses, I finally have the confidence to do what ever it is that makes me feel good about myself.

WeezerGeek
I would say the most interesting thing that's happened on account of my hair would have to be that my boyfriend almost wrote me off because I was a redhead!!! He once said that redheads weren't his type at ALL, and that he preferred blondes or brunettes. Now that we've been together for over 9 months, I'll catch him pushing me into the sun to see the natural highlights shine, or running his hand over the freckles on my shoulders and just grinning. I would definitely say that the most interesting thing on account of my being a redhead would be opening another human being's mind up to new possibilities.

RedJamie
I was born in the Fifties, And, because of my Heitz Variety heritage, I am the only red head in my family of my generation. My father hated my hair color, So my parents had my hair cut in a Butch, I never even realized that I had redhair until I went to school for the first time. Before you go to school, you basicially only see the kids from your street and since you all grow up together and are friends you never pay attention to what the differences are between you. That all changed when I went to school, there were two redheads in my kindergarten class me and Lisa Lowery. Lisa was a fire engine redhead and I was a strawberry blond. We were called brother and sister, boyfriend, girlfriend, Teachers called us carrot tops, Fire engine heads. I remember Lisa being asked if her head was on fire. Being asked if we rubbed heads together to both be redheads and if people rubbed heads with us would they get it too. I hated school because of this and to make people leave us alone Lisa and I stay as far as we could from each other until High School. Which was not always easy because we lived five houses from each other on the same street. We went out with each other twice and found we had too much temper to deal with each other anymore.

Misangela
Heh, I've not had any weird pick ups from the hair! But I'll qualify that by saying that wearing vinyl will sometimes take away from having red hair. I like being identified by my hair. I'm easy to spot and I feel that's only fair, considering what people are getting into when they deal with me. I'm a typical redhead: brutally honest, forthright and a bit of a Diva. My advice to men who approach redheads would be: wear flame proof clothing if you're going to do/say something totally stupid to us. You WILL be flamed.

Timevoyager
No stereotype is universally true. It would be hard to find any redhead who exemplifies all the traits which are particularly strong in us. Just as in any stereotype, none of those traits exists in every one of us. I had an extremely quick temper when I was young. I learned self-restraint and am now slower to anger. However, when pushed to the point of losing my temper, my reactions scare anyone who witnesses them. My temper scares my own family, whom I love dearly. I have always been passionate in a sexual way as well as in my pursuit of creative expression and of knowledge. To me, life without passion would be unthinkable and unendurable. I also exemplify some typical redheaded traits that are less-widely known. Along with other members of my family, I have an extremely high IQ. In consultation with my ex-husband who had also had two other red haired wives and our physician who was himself a redhead, I developed a theory about this aggregate of stereotypes. My redheaded doctor had several congenital defects such as allergies and arthritis which he had noted were also common in his other red-haired patients. Each time I've been admitted to a hospital, some nurse has asked me if I'm a bleeder. These experienced caregivers have learned that redheads often do have coagulation deficits. Most of us have thin, fair skin that makes us vulnerable to sunburn and skin cancer. This is just the tip of the iceberg of redheaded weaknesses. By natural selection any genome with such weaknesses would tend toward the traits that are stereotypes for redheads. Fewer individuals in such a population would survive. Survival would favor the ones who were quick, and in hostile situations, quickness of temper would be an advantage. Of course, the intelligent ones would be more likely to survive to reproduce. And those who reproduced at the youngest age and the most prolifically would be the ones whose genes were passed on. Throughout time, our red-haired ancestors have been passing along sexy, combative, intelligent genetic material at a greater rate than in the general population.

Back to Spotlight Menu