I’ve always worn my hair short. My failure to experiment stems from a certain trauma when I was eight years old which concerned a chili bowl.
Basically, there was this made-for-TV movie with a fat blond kid with a chili bowl. He like…well, he wasn’t handsome. He had giant teeth and was annoying, and, because he was blond, I assumed if I got a chili bowl I would look like him…which I decidedly did not want to do.
Well, one day my mom took me in for a haircut and told the lady to give me a chili bowl. I don’t remember much about being at the salon, but once I got home, I was absolutely devastated. I sobbed because it was now fated that I would be the big-toothed annoying kid from a made-for-TV movie.
My mom had no idea why I’d lost my mind, and I was 8 and couldn’t really verbalize that I didn’t want to look like a kid from TV, but now I HAD TO look like the kid from TV because we got the same haircut. (And, also, mother, find a good orthodontist because my teeth are about to get giant and out of control.)
Anyway, my dad came home and found me sobbing on the couch and was like “What the eff is going on?”
So, my mom had to tell him that I had become mentally unstable because of a cute haircut.
Dad had no time for this (and, also, probably hated the chili bowl), so in fifteen minutes, I was at the local barber who just whacked everything off and gave me a buzzcut.
This buzzcut was the greatest thing in the world at the time. Instead of annoying-chili-bowl kid, I looked like Duke from GI Joe, which WAS SO MUCH COOLER.
Since that time, I didn’t really want to do anything with my hair that would make me look like anything other than an average white guy with short hair.
Well, during COVID, I couldn’t get a haircut, so my hair got longer, and I was kind of like “This…doesn’t look bad.” Paired with my glasses and mid-30s wrinkles, I looked downright professorial. When things opened post-pandemic, I did get my haircut, but I kept thinking about the long hair and wondering if maybe it was time to get a more grown-up cut. After thirty years, maybe it was time for a change? Maybe I should wear tweed and part my hair and like buy a pipe… It could be time.
I’m kind of neurotic, though, so I didn’t want to just grow my hair out and tell people “Oh, I’m growing my hair out, because I want to look like an adult. And, yes, you can get me a gift certificate to Uncle Joe’s Tweed and Pipe Emporium.”
In my head, it sounded better if I said: “Oh, I’m growing my hair out for a Halloween costume. I want to look like a video game character.”
Because, low and behold, in the spring of this year, I found out that they redesigned Link for the new Zelda game, and he is blonde and has slightly longer hair. I’ve always kind of wanted to be Link for Halloween, and his new style lined up nicely with my own desire to grow out my hair, so it appeared to be a very nice solution to a weird non-problem problem.
This May, then, I did a bunch of online research to figure out the best way to grow out your hair. I learned some things that weren’t super useful, like “use conditioner” and “try hair growth formulas”. The one piece of advice that was consistent, though, was to go to a good barber and get it trimmed and consulted on every 4-6 weeks. This, allegedly, would keep it looking good and provide regular guidance on how to style it during the weird, kind-of-long hair adolescent period.
This proved to be fantastic advice. For the first time in my life, I’m going to a place that cuts hair and doesn’t have a bargain price sticker on the window.
You guys! These fancy places wash your hair! And they smell soooooo good! AND THERE’S A SCALP MASSAGE. Literally, I would have paid the $50 bucks after the hair wash and left.
But I didn’t, and I stayed and got a fabulous hair consult with my new hair stylist (a STYLIST!) and have been on a journey to grow out my hair.
It wasn’t until about 3 months in that I lost resolve about my decision. My hair was getting kind of long and hard to manage. If I let it lay flat it looked like I was trying to be an emo kid from 2008, and if I put product in it, I looked like a 70s weatherman.
Around this time, I got a hair trim and my stylist (STILL EXCITED I HAVE A STYLIST!) took just a bit off the top and trimmed the sides.
I picked up my friend for bowling (yes, I am in a gay bowling league…that may necessitate another blog post), and he looked at me and said, “Oh! You got a haircut.”
To which I responded: “Yeah, I’m kind of trying to grow it out.”
“Cute,” he said. He looked at me a bit longer then added: “It’s like…bold.”
OH GOD.
IT’S BOLD?! BOLD. LIKE THE FONT SETTING?
When I was little and my grandma absolutely hated something, she would describe it as “different.”
I think “bold” is the gay “different.” It implies bravery, which…I mean, if I died my hair platinum blond or orange, or I got a weird European cut, I’d be okay with “bold”… But it literally is just slightly longer than usual. Is it bold bad?
But I’m also now obsessed with hairstyles being fonts and typographical settings.
“Your hair is italic today.”
“I woke up and my hair is san serif!”
“Did you see Claudia? Her updo is giving Garamond.”
Anyway, “bold” did nothing to assuage my hair insecurity, but it was also August with Halloween only a few months out, so what was the worst that could happen? I mean I was exactly at the midpoint, so why not just push through?
Two weeks out from Halloween, I got my final hair spruce up from my…. … … [wait for it] … STYLIST!
And it looked fine? There were some waves? It gave some Calibri Light, not quite Calibri Body.
I realized that with longer hair and my Link costume, I just looked like a douchebag in a toga. I could have won a costume contest as a Bold Roman.
Anyway, Halloween has come and gone, and I’m scheduled for a haircut this week. I’m leaning toward a restoration to average-white-guy-with-short-hair because I feel like I look kind of gross with sad, limp long hair.
I asked Ernesto his thoughts, and his response was, “Oh, well what do you think of the long hair?” Which, quite frankly, may be worse than “bold.”
And, even in a worst-case scenario, if I return to short, non-professorial, non-disco-weatherman style, I still won’t look like that poor kid with the chili bowl.
That haircut is pure wingding.