#ALSO. nordic is the bride in this caption

[kipcube]

the bride and the ugly ass groom

[ssubysalters]

Avenue south residences condo

The Exoticization of the feminine is a unique cross to bear for the non Western European Anglo-Saxon, Nordic, Celtic, or Teutonic female. For years in the West, at least in the world of Madison Avenue advertising, the revered concept for feminine beauty was the blue-eyed blonde from Southern California. The blonder the better, the bluer the eyes the better, and the more buxom the better, for it was revered as a modern version of Aphrodite, the ancient Greek goddess of Love, Sexuality, and Beauty. Many females are epitomized this quintessential gold standard of what a woman must physically look like to be worshiped .... Christie Brinkley, Bridgit Bardot, Claudia Schiffer, Farrah Fawcett, and Pamela Anderson who has personified her best in commercial history.

So what happens to the women who will never fit into that mold?

A variety of things. In my case I was the adult version of the little Asian girl in the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty Ad who seemed as if she would cry because as the caption said "Wishes she were blonde". Since my early adolescence, especially growing up in a predominantly homogenous city in the West, this was a latent wish. If only I looked like that I would be accepted, loved, adored, included, and treated as a human being. Remember that this was the late 80's/early 90's in Calgary, Alberta, a city that was the Canadian version of Houston, Texas complete with attitudes and prejudices. My looks gave me a feeling of being an alien and a Avenue south residences condo  deep rejection at the alienation of peers.

When I was barely 17 I moved to Toronto, 3000 miles east, and the most multicultural city in the world according to the United Nations. I was running away from the Rocky Mountain town of my childhood in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and my first "puppy love" who was the only safe person in my adolescent peer group. He was kind, accepting, and a friend who seem to want to make me feel better. I was also so vulnerable that I felt a reinforced romantic inferiority when he dated Miss Teen Calgary and every other Stampede Princess around. He was handsome, athletic, intelligent, popular, and came from a good family. He loved blondes but dated the occasional redhead and brunette.

Once in Toronto I was no longer odd looking but I was to experience the exoticization of my looks. People related to me as a culture, or a set of conceived notion of subservient Filipino women, and spoke to me in Tagalog, one of a thousand dialects from the Philippines which I never learned because my dialect was the very different Visayan. Men would flirt with me by using Filipino words that were more foreign to me than them. Some would sing the Philippine national anthem which they understood and yet I could not verify if it were true. Men and women assumed I was either a nanny who spoke accented English or came to Canada as a mail order bride. Even when I spoke in a Canadian accent and explained that I had grown up here since age two it seemed not to register. I was treated or expected to be the image presented on a Philippine Tourist Ad in travel agencies. When my personality was seen as opposite that anyone interested would quickly vanish because it did not fit into their mental construct of what an Asian woman was like. So the early twenties was single doom to a hilt and once again, Blondie got the invitations, dates, and love and romance galore in my eyes. Either I was a female but exotic in looks but not temperament or just "not from the background wanted". Fighting against my own cultural demands on women and the dominant Western culture was a double whammy that seared into my mind that it, love, was not for me. I invested all my energy into work and hobbies and making friends and divorced myself from the mere possibility of romance. Sure I went through a phase of dating Bay Street types but it was "just lunch dates between work".

Coinciding with this inner ethnic battle was the huge popularity of Baywatch in the early 90's and the superstardom of Pamela Anderson as the most desired lifeguard on the planet. Living in University residence had many girls adopt her look and many boys hang her picture (clothes and not all) on their walls. Being this latest variation of the blonde goddess complements of syndicated TV in her newest incarnation of busty all out sex pot worked. I just had to count the dates. So once again it was driven inside at a greater force than before. The natural female desire to be noticed and replaced by a drive to be busy and be productive like a good Protestant work ethic would entail yet never mind I was Catholic. A part of me was sad and resigned and workaholic busyness was my anesthetic of choice. It was admirable but it didn't heal my heartbreak. Why would I settle to be with someone who only liked me because of some exoticization concept in their mind that I would have to play into? In my defiance and in sour grapes I decided to be myself and really be clear I was not that. My Asian stereotype pressure was disempowering.

Throughout my twenties I deliberately dyed my hair blue-black with an indigo sheen. I wore colors that favored my coloring. I was very serious about things. Too serious.

Where did I fit in this exoticization game because dates were few and far between? Who would date a workaholic serious all the time with a chip on her shoulder? The inner rejection continued through University, work life, and as I approached my late twenties had grown into such an emotional inferno that I consulted a plastic surgeon trained in Japan and the United States to have my eyes westernized and my nose made sharper. I was only 26 years old when this fixation dawned on me and spent three years attempting to raise funds for the double procedure. It was a yearning to be seen as me and a try at evading a more personal healing process requiring an exorcism of exoticization and its emotional demons.