- The hard part is when I’m alone, out on the street, and glimpse a male stranger who looks fully as old as I once pretended not to be. Is that how I appear to others now? I try not to think about it. I let it go.
I had my hairs cut yesterday. The stylists literally said, "so, you're getting some grays" as a conversation starter. I have never met this woman before, how does she know that I'm just now getting them? Maybe I've had this silvery group around my ears, in my sideburns for years. I felt like responding, "so, I see you're getting a little fat."
But I resolved, long ago that I'll never dye any of my hair. That's just not how I roll. I've never dyed my hair. I've never had a buzz cut either. Wish I could have one, but it probably wouldn't play well at work. But ideally, I'd bleach my hair blonde for a day and then shave it all off. That would be fun. I'd look extremely ridiculous with blonde hair.
I like Walter Kirn a lot. My favourite quote from Walter Kirn is this:
- Composing a memoir can magically attract the future.
Now regarding hair colour, it is hard accepting ourselves as we get older. Inside we are 19 sometimes, sometimes 6, and sometimes older and wiser. Does our outward self ever adequately reveal our inward self? Seeing ourselves on video or in a picture can be surprising.
I still like my grey and when I get my haircut, I still ask my hairdresser to make me more gray - which he does with something that washes out. I haven't hairdressed adventurously since a trip to the Dominican Replublic 20 odd years ago when I had my hair braided into dreads. Now that's a good choice because you can more or less forget about it for a month. Oh, and that one time just before getting married when I dyked up and shaved most of it off.
But I should say this: If I was entrepreneurial right now and wanted to do some fundraising for a charity or a start-up and just generally be impressive, I would probably have to step up to the fashion plate. I'm so lucky that I don't, for now.
I've gotten noticeably more in the past three years. But my hair is light, and it doesn't stand out. I don't much care. I think grey hair looks pretty cool. That said, I used to dye my hair all sorts of colors, and I resent that it isn't widely acceptable to do so outside of youth. I don't have much problem dressing or appearing outside of people's expectations, but the friction that it causes is a hassle. If I didn't work in a 'professional' environment, my fashion would probably would drift much more, including hair color. I feel most comfortable when I can.
Most of the woman I know that have gray hair color it. I wonder how many of them feel trapped in the cycle.
The taboo against exotic colors in age is not entirely an ageist one; my wife rawked Run Lola Run red hair for 30 and 31. The problem is that you can get away with Manic Panic and your friend's Wahl job when you're in your teens and twenties because it's kind of expected that your hair looks like shit. As soon as you're professional you need to be groomed and maintaining professional-looking Run Lola Run Red was costing my wife about $200 every three months.
I've had a pony tail down to the small of my back since... shit. 1992. But halfway through college I started shaving the sides - call it an "un-mullet." As a consequence, I appear groomed; I probably cut my hair more often than most men. This allowed me to have hair longer than my wife and a real job.
You've got short hair. Go to a professional salon - like, a good one - and say "I want it to be purple. The kind of purple that will work with a Brooks Brothers suit." I'll bet you they pull it off. I'll bet you you're also startled at the cost.
I don't think my wife dye's her hair because of grey's she just likes to color it the way she likes. I'd like to see her try brunette. She often suggests that she may shorten her hair and I'm not a fan of that. At all. I'm much more attracted to long hair on women for some reason.
I think you should ask her. Women spend more time on their appearance not because of vanity but because society judges them a lot more harshly than men. My wife generally hits her hair with henna every six months or so and it's mostly because if she doesn't, the first thing people notice about her is the gray. She'd actually be at an advantage - most of her competition is older than her - but because gray is so unusual in anyone who isn't 65 or older, the act of not dying it becomes a socially-aberrant statement.
There are short cuts that I think look pretty good, but more often than not, I find longer hair more attractive. It's likely a function of being a straight male. At least it seems a common opinion among us.
I enjoyed having long hair myself, but I don't think I could pull it off as well as I used to.
I did try to dye my hair grey once long ago. It came out a purple gray.