It was Sunday morning just after a shower and I was standing in the bathroom drying off the last drops of water. I gazed into the mirror and did not like what I saw; tufts of brown hair jutting out from the sides of my head like haphazard thatch roofing. Ears that were once plainly visible and free of clutter were buried beneath relentless overgrowth. What was once an easily maintained venture was rapidly becoming an unmanageable mop. And I hated it. I like being trimmed and sleek. I don't want messy. I have outgrown my desires for a more slovenly, less 'interested in what everyone else thinks' appearance. I needed my haircut, damn it. Daddy needs to look good for the cameras. It was time to pay a visit to the barbershop.
The male excursion to the barbershop is an event that is drastically under appreciated by the majority of society. You would think this impossible, given that males are quite close to being the majority - I think we're only down a couple of points to women - in society, and even if we aren't, most of the time what we say goes. I'm not making any judgements on the degree to which our society is dominated by men, I'm just saying that this particular facet of our existence doesn't get talked about nearly enough. When it comes down to it, a trip to the barber is often as frightening, if not more so, than a trip to the dentist. It seems impossible, but let's consider what's at stake here. Every time we sit in that elevating chair we put the future of our social prowess in the hands of what is often a complete stranger. One false move on the part of an unsteady hand armed with sharp instruments could mean a month of shame and embarrassment. A chunk here or a piece there and you've won a ticket to a month of hat-wearing explanations or worse, having to wipe the slate clean and go home with your own brand of military flair. If the dentist screws up it might be painful, but it's a hell of a lot easier to hide a busted grill.
This seemingly innocuous problem is compounded by the fact that it is nearly impossible to describe how your hair should look. This isn't like walking into a Mexican restaurant and saying, "I'll have the #15, no refried beans." This is walking back into the kitchen and telling the chef that you're 'kinda' hungry but you don't know what you want to eat. Men, as any woman will tell you, are notoriously aloof when it comes to the subject of appearances. It would be a monumental struggle to recollect what we wore last week, let alone tell you what kind of shape the accessory that is physically and genetically attached to our bodies looked like. And yet despite this well-known shortcoming we're supposed to paint a clear picture of the future state for someone for whom we don't even have a last name or reference. What makes this an even more harrowing experience is that as little as we know about the person with the scissors, they know even less about us. Recognizing the state of disarray in which this social arrangement lay, years ago men worldwide commenced operations to take the power back and remove the fear from the equation.
In an effort to solve a problem that surely has existed for millennia (pretty sure I remember hearing something about Judas complaining to Simon about a bad haircut in one the scriptures), men universally have adopted one of four strategies. Here they are for your convenience. Knowledge is power.
The first and most popular strategy is to go to one barbershop exclusively and wait until your hair can be cut by one man and one man only. Inevitably it is the owner of the barbershop. And his father cut your father's hair. And his grandfather cut your grandfather's hair, etc. All of this serves as further evidence of how serious men take their manes in addition to just how much they fear going to the barbershop. It takes decades to establish this sort of trust. It doesn't matter if the shop is closed, if the barber is on vacation, or if the entire community has contracted cholera. This strategy does not permit anyone to touch what is arguably the most important work in progress any man has in his lifetime.
The second strategy is one of the most recent and is taken straight from the pages of Cosmo. Increasing numbers of men are eschewing the old-school barber shop for the hip modern stylist. Men employing this strategy are coming to terms with the fact that they just can't trust someone with a mullet to give their haircut a good, honest chance at being something other than a mullet. Rather, this younger generation is paying whatever they need to ensure a high-quality coif. And it is not cheap. Men are closing the gap on women in terms of what they are willing to pay for a 'styling.' That's how much this cut costs. Not only are you paying for the cut, but you're also paying for the ability to refer to it as something less blue-collar than 'haircut.' It's hard to say which costs more, the cut or the attitude.
Third in our list is the hybrid between the stylist and the traditional barbershop. Bringing in a photo of what you want to a traditional barbershop. Rather than rely strictly on powers of description, previously described in this piece as lax at best, men are pouring through magazines and clipping out pictures of their favorite celebrity do's in an attempt to visually reinforce what they struggle to communicate orally. An anthropologist studying the practice of getting one's hair cut would likely note that it is used the least out of all of these methods. Not only does it require men to peruse fashion and celebrity gossip magazines for a reason other than killing time on the john with the only reading material available, but it also requires them to admit weakness. For those of you just joining the human race, these are two things that populate the bottom of the "Things Men Do Frequently" list. I personally have never seen it done, though I have heard tales of such wayward goings on.
Finally, we have the nuclear option. There are men in this world who have seen the folly of the above. They have put their time in and they have paid their dues. They have seen success and failure; they have seen the game played out again and again. These men want no further part in any of it. They are bald. Either they do it themselves with a set of clippers and razors, or they pay someone to do it for them. It's either skin-tight or barely there, but it is uniform all the way around. There is no deviation, no improvisation. There is style only as minimalism has and is style. Simply put, these men are done screwing around. And before we mock their simplicity, let us consider this. They are rarely disappointed.
Anyone who chooses not to follow these prescribed strategies is simply rolling the dice. Which is where I found myself later that sunny Sunday afternoon as I piloted my way towards the barbershop. As I got closer, I found myself driving more slowly. I began mentally rehearsing what I would tell the barber. I found myself trying out adjectives and rejecting them if they were too ambiguous or vague. I even turned the radio off to focus all of my mental energies not devoted to driving. I parked the car and when I had decided on what my monologue was going to be, got out and started walking towards the door.
MONDAY - FRIDAY
9:00 AM - 6:00 PM
SATURDAY
10:00 AM - 5:00 PM
CLOSED ON SUNDAYS
I got back in the car and headed to Barnes & Noble for a copy of Us Weekly.
