overthinking

NAS10240 said:

My curiousity stems from my hair colour, which can only be attributed to Neanderthal DNA, and the social stigma attached to it. Redheaded females are considered more acceptable than males in many parts of social interaction yet there seems no logical reason for some of the intense dislike.

I too have red hair (fading now unfortunately) and have also experienced some ignoramuses who have a problem with red hair - it seems to be one of the only forms of 'acceptable' bigotry left  At school I was told by some other lads 'we don't talk to red haired b.....ds', even going so far as one of them breaking my nose in an unprovoked attack. 

And having red hair also made me very recognisable (although often confused with other like-endowed individuals).  I was stopped by police when in my thirties to identify myself as there had been an 'incident' and the only thing they had to go on was that the perpetrator had red hair. 

I have read that the preponderence of people with red hair with Aspergers exceeds the normal population by something like twenty to one (ie, twenty times the percentage of people with red hair have Aspergers than in the population as a whole).  But there is apparently only a spurious link between red hair and Aspergers!   It would be interesting for someone to do some proper research in this (interesting but probably of not much use!)  Likewise, Aspergers sufferers are more likely to be fussy eaters (I am), and have a squint (I do).  But in the words attributed to Ben Disraeli (via Mark Twain), are these just lies, damn lies, and statistics?

NAS10240 said:

My curiousity stems from my hair colour, which can only be attributed to Neanderthal DNA, and the social stigma attached to it. Redheaded females are considered more acceptable than males in many parts of social interaction yet there seems no logical reason for some of the intense dislike.

I too have red hair (fading now unfortunately) and have also experienced some ignoramuses who have a problem with red hair - it seems to be one of the only forms of 'acceptable' bigotry left  At school I was told by some other lads 'we don't talk to red haired b.....ds', even going so far as one of them breaking my nose in an unprovoked attack. 

And having red hair also made me very recognisable (although often confused with other like-endowed individuals).  I was stopped by police when in my thirties to identify myself as there had been an 'incident' and the only thing they had to go on was that the perpetrator had red hair. 

I have read that the preponderence of people with red hair with Aspergers exceeds the normal population by something like twenty to one (ie, twenty times the percentage of people with red hair have Aspergers than in the population as a whole).  But there is apparently only a spurious link between red hair and Aspergers!   It would be interesting for someone to do some proper research in this (interesting but probably of not much use!)  Likewise, Aspergers sufferers are more likely to be fussy eaters (I am), and have a squint (I do).  But in the words attributed to Ben Disraeli (via Mark Twain), are these just lies, damn lies, and statistics?