When trying to convince me to get some tan on my pasty British skin, my wife once said I was "Too white to be Caucasian". I should have been offended, but I was laughing too hard; she makes me proud.

My younger sister says my legs look like string cheese.

Tropers/{{Bookhobbit}}: I am an extremely PaleSkinnedBrunette with dark circles under my eyes. I quite literally cannot tan more than a shade or so over an entire summer. Being out in the sun for more than fifteen minutes or so will result in burning, which then leads to more freckles. I blame it on her mostly-Celtic heritage, although I've had people accuse her of being a vampire and/or a zombie, especially because my default expression boils down to a wide-eyed blank stare.

Tropers/ProdigalDaughter: My Gods, above troper, are you me? Current record for me is a mere two minutes after meeting someone for him to ask her if I was a vampire.

When extremely pale skin that tans under no circumstances yet discovered is added to an unfortunate tendency to get physically ill when even mildly overheated, the vampire jokes increase exponentially. Trust me. For extra fun try explaining that you can't eat Italian food. (It's a tomato allergy, not the garlic but ''no one believes me''.)

Much like the two above tropers, I have the whole Celtic warrior thing going on (pale skin, red hair, blue eyes, bad temper.) Mine especially was bad because I've grown up in a region of the American Southeast where the sun is sadistically bright, and where almost every single person is at least part Cherokee, including my own parents. This has caused a few arguments with my parents, who always told me to go and get some sun, and if I burn once it'll turn into a nice tan. Despite nearly 20 years of this, they never caught on to the fact that I go from red to white and back again with brown never entering the picture. I've learned to accept it and actually enjoy it, but that hasn't stopped my family from trying to get me to go swimming and fishing and other sunburn-tempting activities.

Tropers/{{Katsuhagi}}: I am mostly of Irish and Scottish descent with reddish hair and as a result am one of two colors: milk white or beet red. My dad is the same way, and the closest the two of us get to tanning is an increase in the number of freckles on our faces and bodies. Attempts to tan my legs since I usually wear pants have been unsuccessful at best and painful at worst. A trip to Ireland a few years ago did help shed some light onto why, mainly that in Ireland there's no sun because ''it's always raining''.

My little sister and I are both extremely pale. Our mum calls us 'moon-tanned'. We have a special 'pasty handshake' where we put our fists together and shout 'PALE SISTER POWERS ACIVATE! FORM OF....(Sunblock, Vampire, Really big hat, The Moon, etc.)" My friends like to joke that I don't tan, I reflect. Also, pathologists love me, because you can literally see most of my veins through my skin.

I'm actually proud of my pale skin its a rarity where I come from (Australia) and it suits me better than a tan, I'd look ridiculous on me despite a few people shout at me to "Get a tan!"

I'm not actually sure if I'm capable of tanning, because I obsessively cover myself in sunscreen whenever I go outside between May and September. (Which I actually hate doing, because I don't like the greasy feeling and have yet to find a non-greasy sunscreen, but I digress.) One or both of the two is why I only darkened a single barely-noticeable shade after a week-long vacation in Mexico that was largely spent on the beach. My parents comment on my whiteness quite frequently, and a couple days ago I actually managed to leave afterimage spots in my vision from the blinding whiteness of my foot. I ''like'' being pale, although you could get the wrong impression from my constant self-deprecating comments.

Tropers/TheTallOne: I am very pale. I once managed to get a sunburn in March in Minnesota. On a cloudy day. After being outside for less than a half hour. I used to freckle, but now I just look like a ghost, not matter how much time I spend in the sun. SPF 50+ FTW!

Ohio in late October + less than 45 minutes outside = bright red sunburn. When I visited a friend in Arizona a few years back, she joked that she was bringing a video camera to the airport just in case she could finally prove spontaneous human combustion once and for all.

I am a very PaleSkinnedBrunette, living in sunny Los Angeles and going to school in not-so-sunny Oregon. The number of times people have asked me why I'm not tan if I'm from California...I burn, people!

I burnt myself badly first day at the beach. The next day, fairly running to get under a beach umbrella, explained "Contrary to folklore, we vampires ''can'' go out in the day, but only in the shade."

Tropers/{{Valbinooo}}: There's a reason I call myself Tropers/{{Valbinooo}}. I'm not actually albinistic, but I only tan on my forearms and a spot on my forehead[and not very much; four days in sunny Missouri only made me a shade darker than usual, but fifteen minutes without sunscreen tanned my boyfriend extremely well]. Freckles happen but on my hands and face only. I'm also quite paranoid about skin cancer and slather on the sunscreen for band camp and going to amusement parks. Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of my whiteness, though I wish I didn't have to worry so much about taking care of my skin.

I am, and have pretty much always been, because of my very strong Irish and English background, the palest girl in my class. I have red hair and green eyes, and I cannot tan. At all. Now, take a picture of me besides other kids my age who go to tanning salons or have naturally darker skin ... I show up in nearly all of them like a ghost. I am happy with my pale skin (although I wish it didn't need so much care) and proud to be who I am; and hey, I can always find myself in a picture.

Tropers/RainehDaze: I tan. Presumably. No-one knows, given how little time I spend in sunlight. The end result is that I manage to still have no tan whatsoever after over a month of solid sunlight. On the flip side, I never burn, either.

I am very pale, and burn horribly; for some reason, [=SPF100=] doesn't work on me. (I know, Beyond the Impossible, but it doesn't work.) Also, I'm from Washington. While on vacation, I avoid mentioning where I live as much as possible.

Inverted, after a fashion, for me with my English-Chinese heritage. I changed school from sunny Australia to Scotland. There was no sun, full stop, and I was sick and depressed through the winter. I've never looked, no, been more sickly and pale. Thankfully I got back to my natural olive-brown pallor, almost, over the Christmas holidays.

Tropers/DesertDragon: Just once, I would like to date a guy who doesn't get sunburns from house lamps.

My mum is one of these. She is really, ''really'' pale. (The woman has like, no pigmentation anywhere, blond hair, pale skin, etc.) But you can still tell if she has been in the sun because the gigantic scar that runs down her arm will turn really brown.

Being of almost entirely Scottish and German descent, I have quite a pale skin tone. I tan a little bit in the summer, but only when getting at least a little burned first. This summer is the darkest I've ever been, and I'm still look pale in comparison to some of my other friends.

I am male and light-olive-complexioned, and I am dead certain that the trend will shift back to "pale is sexy" soon, thanks partially to Twilight, and partially to the retardation of women's fashion. Given the current prevalence of girls with a burnt umber skin tone, this means that the new Orangeskin equivalent will be a hideous slug thing that looks like it lives underground. Mark my words, there'll be morlock girls around any day now.

I'm one of those deathly pale, burns-instead-of-tanning people. In America people were always telling me to get some sun. Then I moved to Japan, where tans are ugly and pale skin is beautiful, and suddenly every woman I meet is telling me how much they envy my paleness. (Personally, I think both countries are unhealthily obsessed with arbitrary skin-related beauty standards,and the "oh my god your skin is so beautiful, I wish I looked more like you!" comments make me about as uncomfortable as the "jeez, go outside once in a while!" ones.)

I am what my friends call 'freaky-pale'. More than five minutes in direct summer sunlight causes lobster imitations, but no tan. And then people want to know why I'm wearing jeans in 98 degree weather. Annoyingly, my brother is actually a ginger, but is capable of tanning and is darker than me.

I am ghost white and suffer greatly due to a) my fear of skin cancer and b) an inability to stay outside in the sun for extended periods of time without feeling extremely ill and burning.

Sun allergy?

A member of the Goon Squad at my middle school once asked her if she was an albino, despite her having brown hair, green eyes, and no eyesight issues. My promptly proceeded to inform her of the extent of her idiocy. For the record, she is of English, Scottish, Irish, German and Italian ancestry; apart from the nose, she most definitely has ''not'' taken after the Italian side of the family.

I am a red head and burn really easily at the beach, so I makes sure to wear a lot of sunscreen and never tan there.. Only when I was recruited to the army did I learn that I could tan with milder (than the beach at summer, still pretty rough sun otherwise) sun for much longer hours though, and received a very impressive farmer tan. People remarked I was probably the darkest natural ginger in the world at that point.

I am dark-haired and very pale, and I can get sunburnt ''on cloudy days'', something I share with my father's side of the family. I am also photophobic into the bargain. Bleh.

Tropers/TweedlyDee: I come from a long line of Irish drunkards, sporting a dark blond mop and a near ghostly complexion. When confronted this, I take it in stride and joke about being a white supremacist.

I am nicknamed 'Toothpaste' by my half-Indian, half-English best friend, due to having a 'whiter than white' complexion in a mostly Asian area.

My mother is of Mediterranean/Middle Eastern descent, while my father's family are about as white as Northern Europeans can get. My mom and I are generally more resistant to sunburns. My father and my sister? Not so much.

I am of French, English, Scottish, German, Swiss-Jewish, and Irish descent. I am one of the palest people I've ever met, and even have the whole blond-haired blue-eyed Aryan thing going on. Oddly enough though, I don't burn as easily as most people I know, including tan white people, Asian people, and even some black people.

Tropers/FishOfLightning: I'm a descendant of a lot of different kinds of people. On my mom's side, you have the natives of Spain that mixed with Arabs, Irish, and Scandinavians, and on my dad's side you just have ultrawhite people. Ship those two families off to Costa Rica in the 1500s, have them meet in the 1990s, and you get my brother and me, followed by our sister. My brother and sister are total opposites, while I'm stuck in the middle, with a substantial lean towards the pale side. I don't tan without burning a little, and look like an asshole with one anyway. I actually wouldn't mind being paler.

I'm a brunette with dark patches underneath my eyes (from semi-insomnia), and I'm actually very proud of my fair skin. This is rare for girls in my school considering I live in a beach resort town.

Tropers/{{Tombcannon}}: I am some kind of European mutt, and burn/blister in the sun while throwing up some freckles as a shoddy defense mechanism. I'm nearly positive that tanning is a physical impossibility. I once won a tanning gift certificate in a raffle in high school, much to the amusement of everyone present.

I have brown hair, not red, and I burn horrible and tan a bit. Which is to say, if I take off my watch and look, you can tell the difference about where it was, even though my "tan" is still pasty. No one ever believe this is my tan unless I show them.

I have a skintone that is about sheet white. My arms do tan, but I do not mind the whiteness that much - although my legs could probably do with some tanning. My mom, on the other hand, is about as dark as a caucasian female can be, and even has her own sunbed. She does mind my white skin... In the Netherlands, it is considered healthy to have a (LITTLE) tan, so when I prefer not to go out in the sun - I burn in, like, an instant - it is considered weird. I do believe, however, that finding my veins should not be as hard as finding my moms; when she wanted to donate blood, she was stabbed with a needle about 5 times. When they were still not able to find her veins, they send her home, saying that donating blood was not possible in her case.

I returned from backpacking in Italy and Greece with a slight honey-coloured tint to my skin (obtained over a period of weeks - any time she spent more than a few minutes in the sun she was religious about applying sunscreen). Coworkers, roommates and friends told her how bizarre it was to see her with any colour in her face; strangers still thought she was abnormally pale.

I am very pale, and have blond-red hair and freckles, probably due to the Scottish and Irish parts of the family. I am often told that I would look better if I dyed my hair black, let it down, and got a deep tan. (No, really, usually but not always in those exact words, and they aren't deliberately trying to offend that way, or any way.) My skin can tan, if I burn first, and the tan stays for a while (taking about six months to a year to fade) but it doesn't get very deep ever. Besides that, usually only patches of skin tan. This phenomena is weird and ugly to look at, but people insist on telling me that I should get an all over tan, as if I could. They try at least once or twice a year, particularly in winter, when this would be doubly impossible due to the weather.

I am a very light-skinned black woman. Random strangers and sometimes relatives tell me that I'm "too white" in skin tone ''and'' in behavior (still don't know how that's possible). It's kind of a BerserkButton for me.