What does it mean to be "French-looking" anyway?

Remember, before the last election, when the stupid right-wingers kept repeating to the masses that John Kerry was "French-Looking," and they meant it as some sort of insult? Well, it occurred to me recently just how many times I've been told by various people that I "look French," and I was never offended. So why does this happen to me? Maybe it's because I like to wear a lot of black, or maybe it's because I wear weird clothes or something (I'm not a smoker, so that couldn't be the reason), but I do have strangers (as well as people I know well) tell me I "look French."

The first time I recall this happening was several years ago when I was living in Oxford and there was a guy sort of following me around town while I was shopping one day. Well, I suspected he was following me, and then I was sure of it when he finally got up the courage to say hello to me. Probably the first words out of his mouth were, "Are you French? I saw you walking around, and I just thought you looked French." When I told him, "No, I'm American. Why do you ask?" He just looked disappointed, said, "Never mind," and walked away. I think that guy was British...and I still can't figure out what that was all about.

A few years later, I was sitting in an airport waiting to take a flight to visit my family. This was when I was still single, and I was alone in the airport, except I was with my dog. I never like to put my dog in the carrier and on the plane until the last possible moment, so I was hanging around in the area near the ticket counter. Anyway, there was a guy who came over and sat down next near me to strike up a conversation, and we were talking for a while about something (I can't really remember what), then he told me that when he saw me earlier sitting with my dog he thought I must be French, and that was why he had decided to come over and talk to me.

The thing is, I've never lived in France (although I've visited there), and I'm not French, as far as I know...I mean, maybe a tiny bit (I'm of English and Danish ancestry mainly). But I always thought my mother looked French when she was younger. It was just something about how she posed for photos, the way she dressed and the way she wore her hair. She has high cheekbones, almond eyes, full, pouty lips and dark, auburn hair. She used to do some modeling, and it was nearly impossible to take a bad picture of her. Looking at her old photos, I always thought it was unfair that she's much prettier than me, and I really don't understand why I don't look like a French model too.

On a side note, I once met a guy on a flight leaving LA where I had flown to spend New Year's Eve with a friend. It was a Southwest Airlines flight (so there was no assigned seating), and this guy had hurried into the airplane to try to get a seat next to me. He said he had seen me earlier in the gate area, and thought I was British. I asked him why, and he said it was because I had a "natural" look (it's true that I don't like to wear a lot of makeup), and that my leather jacket looked second-hand (it was actually).

I laughed because I had been living in England for the past few months (apparently it only took a few months for me to "look British"), and in a few days I would be returning there to go back to school. I ended up giving this guy my parents' phone number in case he wanted to call me when I got back to the States, but I didn't expect to hear from him again. And then I forgot all about him until I returned home...he had saved my phone number, and he called me shortly after I got back to the U.S. He and I were actually pretty serious for a while...and all because I appeared to be a foreigner...