The Face that Launched a Thousand Comments
Can someone please tell me what it is about my face? (Ok, maybe that is a slightly loaded question). But really, over the years, I've had so many people say something about my appearance that I'm beginning to get a tad paranoid.
Years ago when I was a kid, it was of course usually insults. Stuff about my funny-shaped nose ('Patricia is in grade four but her nose is in grade six') and stuff about my bushy eyebrows (Great names like 'Sasquatch'. And yes, my eyebrows were bushy, in a really scary way, until I discovered an amazing invention known as tweezers. I'm still not sure what the greatest discovery was for me when I was young – sex or tweezers). But hopefully we all move beyond that crap, and people know enough to not say stupid things about one's appearance. Right?
Once I moved to Toronto eighteen years ago, that's when the comments really picked up again. For some strange reason, I seem to have the kind of face that everyone has seen before. I've lost count the number of times strangers have come up to me, believing me to be someone else. People I do not know will approach me and begin conversations as if I am their best friends. Then they will see my confused expression, take another look at me, and realize that I'm not who they thought I was. Can one person have that many dopplegangers out there?
But the pièce de résistance are the questions I get about my nationality. I've had people ask me if I am Italian, Portuguese, Greek, Polish and Spanish. A couple months ago I was walking in my neighbourhood when I walked by a very old lady who was sweeping her driveway. She looked at me, smiled and walked right up to me. (Now if I had said a few words about her appearance, I might have mentioned that she needed a few lessons in how to put make-up on properly, but that would be rude, right?) She had a thick European accent. With a big smile on her face she asked me, "You Ukrainian?" I smiled and said no. She looked at me suspiciously. "You look Ukrainian." I told her I was pretty sure I wasn't Ukrainian. She then asked me what my nationality was. I said Canadian. She shook her head. "No! Where you from?" I sighed in my head, because I figured I would get the usual incredulous response. I told her my father's family was from England, and my mother was from Jamaica. I was expecting the usual answer, "But you're not black!" Instead she said, "Ahhh...Portuguese Jamaican!" I was stunned. Nobody ever got that right. I exclaimed, yes, she was right, and actually my mother's family was Portuguese Jewish Jamaican, and how did she know? But by this time she had lost interest in me, and replied, "Ok, 'bye 'bye" and continued sweeping her driveway. Oh well.
Last week I was waiting at the Bloor/Yonge subway station when I noticed that a heavy-set man over six feet tall was staring at me. I turned my head and looked in the other direction, but when I eventually turned my head back, he was still staring at me. So I thought what the hell I'll smile at him. That was his cue. He came up to me, and in a thick Russian accent he asked, "You Russian?" I said no. He was surprised. "You look Russian," he said. (What the hell does Russian look like? I was wearing my glasses. Do all Russians wear glasses? He was wearing glasses, too, when I think of it). "Where you from?" he asked. Here we go again, I thought. Canada, Jamaica, yada yada. Big surprise on his face. "You from so far away!" Like Russia isn't far away?
Just this past weekend I went for a walk and ran into that same old Ukrainian woman I had seen a few months before. This time she was bagging some leaves. She still didn't know how to wear make-up. It was pretty cold outside, so I had put on my comfy brown ear muffs (I prefer ear muffs over hats. For completely vain reasons, of course – can't abide hat hair). The old lady looked at me. I smiled, figuring that we would have another interesting conversation. But no. She acted like she had never seen me before. Once again, she came up to me with a question. This time she was not smiling. "You chimpanzee?" she asked. I wasn't sure if I had heard what she said. "I beg your pardon?" She repeated the question, this time in a really pissed off, accusatory tone. "You chimpanzee??" I laughed and pointed to my ear muffs. "Oh you mean these!" She nodded, but did not smile. In fact, she looked like she was really offended by me, and my choice of headgear. Suddenly I got a little scared, and walked on.
I wonder what she will say to me the next time. I wonder what anyone will say to me the next time. I'm putting my money on Lithuanian.
