When you don’t look like your dad

This is a letter to the women at the bar,

My father and I waited nearby as our table was readied for dinner. Stood right next to you and your friend. As I leant over to read a menu I heard what you said:

“God those two are on a date, gross.”

I instantly pulled back and quickly called out - “DAD come look at the menu.”

You looked over and still you said under your breath to your friend- “thank god, you never know.”

Maybe you only said it because the wine bottle in front of you was drained, maybe you thought you were unusually witty that evening.

Whatever your motive - I wonder why I felt I had to comfort you, assure you that nothing uncouth would ever share your air.

So I don’t share the same pinkish hue of my father, and luckily not his large and coarsely shaped nose. Yes, my father and I look different. But still, before you think daughter, you think girlfriend?

Funnily enough you’ve reminded me of a walk my father and I took in Italy when I was 16. We walked along the Tiber after dinner as my mom ran into a shop to buy some souvenir or another.

Dad, why are those men following us?

We kept moving, but every time I looked back the two men had drawn closer and kept staring, gesticulating in what can only be a sexual way.

Perhaps it is because I am Asian and my father is not.

I think it is unconscious, usually not malicious, but have I been fetishized? Is that what this is? Or are you just curious?

Funny how other people teach you how to see your difference, how you are not what they need to see. What they want to see.