vagabondish.com
>It wasn't that I was beauty queen gorgeous. Far from it. Slim, medium-height, with hazel eyes and freckles, I was at best 'cute' and at worst, average. But I had something that the competition didn't: long, naturally curly, blond hair. Furthermore, I was bilingual, well-traveled and college-educated.
>But as I realized a few weeks into my stay in Japan, I was also mysteriously, frustratingly invisible.
>Cute baristas at Starbucks wouldn't look at me, business men on bicycles ran over me and college students hurriedly backed away from me with mumbled apologies whenever I tried to strike up a conversation about the weather or ask for directions. They wouldn't even give me the time of day. Literally.
>I was walking from work one Friday evening when it dawned on me that I'd been in Japan for nine months. I inwardly congratulated myself for having beat the odds. I'd proven my boss wrong. But as I trudged home to face another evening of reruns of The Office and left-over sushi from 7-11, I wondered at what cost. Most days I felt unattractive, unwanted and worst of all, unfemale. When not even a short skirt or slinky top attracted more than a passing glance and even construction workers, who could usually be counted on for a leer, regarded me with bored, blank expressions, I felt like a Martian. And very, very alone. Perhaps I'd been wrong not to leave when the last shipload of foreign women sailed away to brighter horizons and better dating odds.
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