alex.cvitanovic

There are tell-tale signs that you are about to receive a bad hair­cut. I have com­piled the fol­low­ing list from first-hand experience:

1. “How would you like your hair cut today, sir?”. Is the one-word sen­tence “shorter” an accept­able answer? I would imag­ine most men would have no idea how to describe their desired hair style [or if they know their desired hair­style]. Occa­sion­ally the hair­dresser will pro­duce a sheet of haistyles (mod­elled on peo­ple who have per­fect bone struc­ture). Dis­mayed by the pic­tures [“these wouldn’t look good on me”], I describe “shorter” using phrases like “not too short on top, short on the sides, can you thin it out?”
2. Clip­per num­bers. “Will a num­ber 4 be OK?”. I don’t know. Its just a num­ber. Am I sup­posed to know the answer to this? Fur­ther­more, is it OK to request a size 4 and then dis­cover that it needs to be a 3 later on in the hair­cut, is that offensive?
3. Side burns - Do i keep them or get rid of them? I mean, who thinks about their side-burns? Its not exactly some­thing you pon­der each day [Oh…look at his side-burns, I WISH that I had side-bruns like that!]
4. The paper-ring around the neck. It’s just a lit­tle too creepy, and that scrap­ing noise it makes when it scratches your beard is INTOLERABLE. Like fin­ger­nails on a chalk­board. <sarcasm>Although the cape is über-stylish. I have to hold myself back from enquir­ing where I could pur­chase one.</sarcasm>
5. “How does this look?” the haridresser will enquire, while hold­ing a mir­ror at the back of my head. This is the ONLY time I ever see the back of my head, I’m not even sure what it’s sup­posed to look like. I try to look at my hair but can only won­der where that extra-freckel came from. And before I know it the sur­real moment is over and the mir­ror is whisked-away.
6. “What kind of prod­uct would you like in your hair?” — uhh.…pick one. I’m not going to use it again any­way. Do I LOOK like a man who uses product?
7. A new hair­cut never looks good. Ever. The dis­sat­is­fac­tion level with the end result is always high (but not high enough to com­plain). Its too short, too long, the sides arent just right. I decide that it will be OK, it will grow out soon anyway.
8. “Did you get a hair­cut?” friends enquire. No. I have a rare degen­er­a­tive dis­ease where my hair will shorten itself periodically.
9. Two weeks later my hair looks great. Always. This is part of  newtons-law.
10. Three weeks later I dont care.
11. Four weeks later peo­ple (those peo­ple) start mak­ing com­ments about the fact that I need a haircut.

There are support-groups for peo­ple like me, who are trau­ma­tised by the process of a bad-haircut. Would any­one like to join me?

Tagged as friends, haircut, scissors + Categorized as Me, Culture, Revolutionary