Kathy Griffin is the Reason You Should Never Date a Redhead

 

 

I’ve known about a dozen people like Kathy Griffin in my life. Hell, I’ve even dated a few of them. Needless to say, I regret getting to know any of them, and I’m here today to help you avoid making the same grave errors I did in the past.

 

Really, one look at Kathy Griffin’s visage is enough to make my argument for me, but let’s dig into the issue a little deeper. I’m no scientist, but gaging from my 31 years of lifetime experiences, I’d venture to guess a good 90 to 95 percent of all female redheads share the exact same behavioral characteristics she does. That’s because red hair isn’t a physical trait, it’s a biological warning.

 

You know how in nature, the coral snakes that have yellow bands are poisonous while the ones that have black bands aren’t? Well, human beings are really no different and display the same kind of aesthetic warnings, chief among them having hair the same color as menstrual fluid.

 

We all grew up in a pop cultural milieu that posited redheads as exotic and erotic. If you were a kid in the 1990s you were bombarded by images of redheads – be they real life women like Cindy Crawford, Gillian Anderson and Ginger Spice or fictional characters like Jessica Rabbit, the Little Mermaid and Poison Ivy – as the apex of the elusive female form. From birth we were pretty much indoctrinated by the media to fetishize redheads as something rare and intrinsically desirable.

 

And I suppose that’s kinda’ true, seeing as how redheads make up just 2 percent of the entire global population. Alas, they never felt the necessity to tell us that redheads aren’t genetically natural and are the results of melanocortin-1 receptor mutations – and that said mutations may or may not be responsible for a dizzying array of behavioral eccentricities seemingly inborn in the redheaded female populace.

 

Scientists have proven redheads experience thermal changes faster, have more pain receptors and tend to bruise easier than the rest of us. And since we all know physiology can directly impact one’s neurology now, is it really a stretch to say those same biological truisms may explain the explosive emotional temperament of the aggregate ginger gal in these United States?

 

I’ve known about six or seven Kathy Griffins in my life. Not only did they look like her, they had the exact same disposition: they were catty and self-centered and two-faced and obsessed with attention. But most importantly, they all had that same weird sense of emotional instability, as if they could explode into a whirlwind of rage one second after hugging you. I desperately, direly tried to dig up some data on the prevalence of bipolar disorder in redheads, but while I couldn’t find any concrete medical proof, there are enough Google search responses for “why are redheads crazy” – a good 8.7 million, to be slightly more precise – that maybe we don’t really need the actual math to back up what all of us secretly have suspected for eons.

 

 

The first girl I seriously dated was a redhead. At first, she seemed alright, sort of a pixie-ish Molly Ringwald type. Even now she was the most sexually aggressive woman I’ve ever been with, which sounds great and all until you start seeing that aggression manifested everywhere OUTSIDE of sex(*). She yelled and cried and slammed doors and threw things and called me everything but a white man whenever she was upset … which was all the time. That Hillsborough of a relationship should have smartened me up, but nope, I just had to hook up with no less than three more redheads before I turned 23.

 

Here’s the quick-and-dirty rundown of what I had to deal with:

 

• A pseudo-intellectual Tori Amos wannabe who, with the precious gift of foresight, bore an uncanny resemblance to The Danish Girl and whose overall narcissism practically made her a 20-year-old version of Ayn Rand who could never get her eyeliner on right.
• A tatted-up social justice warrior really into anime who somehow managed to gain 40 pounds over the course of two months (in case you were wondering, we broke up because I wouldn’t stop laughing during Gran Torino.)
• Some 33-year-old girl from my Sophomore biology class who I later learned literally had split personalities. She started addressing herself as “Charlie” while we were making out and demanded I do things to her that even Bill Cosby wouldn’t have done. (To get out of that little quagmire, I instead took her to IHOP and told her I was gay on the downlow – five years afterward, I still found myself shooting down Facebook friend requests from her on a nigh-monthly basis.)

 

(*) And in case you’re wondering if redhead sex is actually superior, the answer is no. That, and without makeup, they literally look corpse-purple first thing in the morning … imagine how fun learning that was the first time out the barn.

 

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re probably just assuming that because I had these bad experiences with the gingers (boy, the things you can get out of that anagram, eh?) I now have to project my blatant anti-redhead bias on all orange, red and auburn-haired women. But like I said, I’ve observed that aggressive redhead disposition – oversensitivity, feigned sincerity, manic mood swings, etc. – pretty much everywhere I’ve encountered redheads. At school, at work, even at the checkout counter at the grocery store – if she’s got red hair, there’s a nine out of ten chance she’s going to display some kind of behavior that is overly aggressive, spiteful or self-exalting. (And if you’re looking for a citation on that, how about this one – LIFE ITSELF.)

 

Surely, somebody is going to read this and get miffed. Somebody’s going to read this and because they’re married to or dating a redhead take offense to it. Well, let me tell you something, pal – if you’re with a ginger and you can still stand totally upright and aren’t afraid she’s looking over your shoulder right now, she’s dyeing that shit. Every guy – every … last … one – I’ve known that’s married a redhead and/or dated them for a long time lives in absolute gut-wrenching fear 24 hours a day. Their wives and girlfriends don’t just dominate them, the dominate everything around them. If their gals set the thermostat at 50 degrees in the middle of a snowstorm, they aren’t going to touch the dial – even if their woman isn’t even home. What she says, goes, and the minute she doesn’t get her way, all they can do is take cover and pray for the best.

 

But apparently, the word is getting out about the redhead illusion. Due to a lack of breeding, the gene responsible for red hair could be extinct by the end of the century. I couldn’t help but notice Kathy Griffin – age 56, although the carbon dating could be inaccurate – has never had any children of her own. Perhaps that maternal regret is what really inspired her to take photographs of herself beheading a prop of Donald Trump’s head, and maybe even publicly declare that she wanted to “beat down” Trump’s 11-year-old (and potentially autistic) child. Trump did pass on his genetic batter, while Griffin’s ovaries probably look like freaking century eggs by now.

 

Yeah, I know, I know, Christina Hendricks and Jessica Chastain are hot. But I’d also venture to guess there’s a 50/50 chance they’re both bipolar as hell, and as my great grand uncle Jebediah once old me, “pretty ain’t no excuse for crazy.” If you want to see what real redheaded women are like, watch Married … with Children. The plight and suffering of Al Bundy, I am sure, echoes the misery of millions of men who went red and later wished they were dead.

 

With enough focus, timing and deft public relations, we can find a way to stamp out the genetic defect responsible for Kathy Griffin in our lifetimes, folks. Just remember we can all play a part in this valiant struggle against the Red Menace – and never forget, friends don’t let friends date gingers.