Operation Long Hair: You Be the Judge
Longer hair in September
Eleven months ago, my divorce after 15 years became final, and I had an important choice to make: Motorcycle, tattoos, muscles, or long hair.
Understandably, when you get out of something as traumatic as watching your family disintegrate before your very eyes, you want to reinvent yourself in at least some minor way. Laugh all you want, ladies, but you obsess over your appearance even when you are happily married.
While I wouldn’t recommend the process to anyone, the fact is divorce does afford you new-found freedom to go out and make new friends and do whatever you couldn’t while legally joined with a spouse. You find yourself going on trips simply because you don’t have to answer to someone else anymore (although I do advise checking in with someone in case you end up in the house of that cannibal family from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre).
To emerge on the other side of a marital split as completely the same person is just kind of sad, a missed opportunity to turn heartbreak into the next level of you.
For my obligatory “wild hair” reinvention, I briefly considered the motorcycle thing. And getting a tattoo. And getting bulked up with biceps. Motorcycles may be sexy, but not very practical, plus you have to get an impressive enough hog, which means major moolah dispersement. While I’d love to go riding, I can think of about 20 other gizmos I’d rather own than a Harley.
The main thing preventing me from getting a tattoo was a lack of inspiration about what body art to get, along with the realization that you can’t simply get one or two tattoos to get the maximum bad-ass effect. You have to get the freakin’ dragon across your shoulder blade and down one arm, minimum. If I was only going to get some cliché tribal thing or a little butterfly, why even bother? Again, I can think of lots of better ways to spend my hard earned cash than injecting ink under skin that will eventually fade and sag due to time and gravity.
My friend Kevin
I seemed most likely to transform myself in the gym. I sent off for P90X and started doing those grueling workouts. The only problem was life kept coming up and knocking me off the program, forcing me to start the 90 days over and over. And once you get that first day ache out of the way, you don’t want to go through that again. The nutrition part of it also proved very hard for a renewed bachelor whose cooking skills barely extended beyond heating up Spaghettios. I may yet become a muscle-bound stud, but for the moment anyway, I retain my cute beer gut and average upper body strength. I’m still strong enough to kick your ass.
So I was left with one option: Growing out my hair.
Short Hair Steven
I’d attempted to grow my hair long while I was in college, but the result was more often than not something resembling a white guy’s afro. Not sexy. That was back when the metal bands all had big hairsprayed ‘dos. Even then I thought those guys looked ridiculous. For all practical purposes, my own hair had never gotten any longer than my shirt collar.
My sister Anita, who is my best friend and most trusted advisor, was the primary instigator of Operation Long Hair.
“Grow it out,” she prodded. “There’s nothing sexier than a guy with the audacity to wear long hair. It shows confidence. Plus, you’ll look like a creative person, an artist, rather than a banker.”
That last part was probably what did it. Appealing to my desire to be seen as that sensitive soul seemed to fit my whole motif. I certainly couldn’t out-bodybuild my way to a distinctive look, nor badass my way to a believable look with a Harley that costs as much as my house or tattoos I’d already regret before leaving the parlor.
Short haired Steven
Let’s face it. I’m awesome in lots of ways, but I’m hardly a bad ass. Not in the conventional cartoon stereotype sense. Not yet anyway. I’m working on that, as soon as I figure out how to not care so much what other people think of me.
Sensitive artist seemed a lot more me, more natural, zero pretend factor. Also, I telecommute from a home office and rarely ever see my bosses, so it’s not like I had someone breathing down my neck from the corporate HQ to clean up my look.
The last time I let someone cut my hair was April, nine months ago. I was tempted many times to just hack it off. Early on, when it grew more on the sides than the top (let’s face it, I’m not 20 anymore), I cultivated a bit of the Ben Franklin look. Completely ridiculous. Right about then, I grew extremely pessimistic about the chances of success for Operation Long Hair.
A rough patch in the great experiment
But my sister kept encouraging me to keep going, saying it would look better once it was weighted down. She dangled before me one key thought: That if I cut my hair then, I’d never know how awesome it might look in a month. If and when I cut it short, I doubt I’ll ever let my hair grow this long again, so I have a once-in-what’s-left-of-my-lifetime opportunity to see whether it would look as cool as she suggested.
That tells you how much sway she has on me, considering how many lady friends I have ignored offering their opinion that I look better with short hair. Some have said they like it long, but I’m not sure if they really mean it or they’re just being polite. Most have said it looks better short. And possibly it isn’t what looks best on me as much as their personal preference. She women like guys with the short hair, others dig the long hair they can run their fingers through.
Oh yeah
My ex always had a thing for long haired rocker types. Those guys don’t seem to have any problem having girlfriends and groupies. I wish I knew how to play guitar. I played trumpet in high school. Does that count as a sexy instrument? Not unless I’m Miles Davis? Decidedly not. But I am starting to look like the horn blower from the Muppets.
Now I’m on the prowl for a new job. I’m nervous about the long hair, although I probably shouldn’t be. As long as I shampoo it daily and properly groom myself, there’s no reason to expect an employer would base a hiring decision solely on who had the more conservative hairdo. Then again…
I’m finding the long hair does change you a bit. I move a little slower for some reason. But I also get annoyed pulling apart tangles. Roaming free, I am curl city and the wind blows the hair in my face, which is annoying. When I put some product in it, it actually looks pretty good. I thought it would be harder to style it, but it is actually easier to comb it into place, as opposed to that messy punky look when it is short.
So I’d appreciate your feedback. Constructive feedback. Don’t tell me I look like a dweeb. I already know that.
My Sweet Oasis 
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