Men Hate Shaved Heads

Ok, this is a slight ode to the evolution of my hair styles over the past years. Not really an ode, but a word to my observations on people’s reactions. Unfortunately, this is the only picture I have right now of this stage, and really I have few pictures to document my evolution. I started off cutting my hair. Due to timidity, first I cut it to my shoulders and then I chopped it down to about 3-4 inches. Then I shaved it. I let it grow a few inches and shaved it again. I thought, “I want some dreadlocks.” But, in the end, I didn’t have the patience, so I shaved it all off again.  However, eventually I distracted myself enough to grow my hair out and start dreading it.  Now, understand that I have really straight hair so this process took a couple of years. By the end of the couple of years, with the help of some cheap beer, I had my boyfriend shave off all the parts that had not locked up by then. I ended up with a kinda sorta topknot surrounded by shaved head. Which I guess is what a topknot is, so why did i say anything extra? Anyways, it didn’t take too long for the shaved  part to grow out. So this time I had my boyfriend shave a design it. We hemmed and hawed for a little while. Everything I wanted  he said was too intricate for his razor. So, I ended up with a chaos rune. The topknot of dreads was the middle of the rune with the chaos arrows growing out of the knot. I wish I had a picture, but at that time I was not into taking pictures. Then I started letting it all grow into dreads. Then I got arrested and cut them all off before I went to court. But that’s another story. Believe you me, the first time I got arrested I did not cut the dreads, rather, I attended my court session with a head covering–as though somehow that was better. But the second time, I just didn’t have the heart, so I chopped ‘em. Now there’s a reason to mention all this (kinda). In all my hirsute meanderings, men hated–I repeat HATED–it when I shaved my head, any part of it. Minus of course, the boyfriend who put the razor to the scalp, but he was very unusual by many different sors of standards. Oh my God! You would not believe how many comments I got at work, from housemates, even dudes in bars. They hated any time I shaved any part of my head. They much preferred the dreadlocks. The girls are a different story. It just goes to show how most men still have traditional ideas about what a woman should look like. Either that or they want long hair to grab, I really don’t know, because I am not a guy.