By Michael Sugarman

When a girl gets a short haircut in her 20’s and beyond, its usualy precipitated by some trial she had to endure, most often a bad break-up.  Now, when I use the term “short”, I’m not talking about a trim, or a few inches off the bottom.  I’m talking about really short: a drastic cut in the range of a crew-cut.  Think Demi Moore in “G.I. Jane”.  And the process goes something like this:

First, the causal action takes place (i.e. “I can’t believe he dumped me for that skank!” or “my younger sister is getting married before me!”) which results in the misconception that the girl needs a change.  And since physical change is both easy and usually non-permanent, it’s the usually chosen before spending time improving ones mental/emotional state.  Secondly, and potentially most damaging, any number of womens magazines arrive showing a female movie star or supermodel with short hair.  Our heroine, blinded by her need for self-improvement, forgets that the women in the magazine are movie stars and supermodels.   She also conveniently forgets that these celebrities have at their disposal, hair-stylists, make-up artists and professional photographers (and lets not forget air-brushing) that make their short hair look good.  But even with the will to change and hard evidence that it will look good, our girl is still missing one more crucial thing: the friend buy-in. 

Cut to a Saturday morning brunch.  The girl is at a 4-top table with three of her friends at their local brunch spot.  They chat and gossip (“She did what last night?!  With who?!”), and all the while the girl is waiting to drop her bomb.  And then, after the omelettes have been eaten, and the dish dished, she drops the Cosmo or Glamour, already turned to the page with the short haired celebrity, on the table in front her friends.  “No”, they say!  You are NOT going to do it, are you?  But these incredulous denials are not denials at all.  In fact, they hide a plethora of ulterior motives. 

In any 3 girlfriends, at least one is harboring a secret grudge or a secret jealousy.  This female with the hidden agenda, when the announcement of the short haircut is made, immediately becomes the ringleader/cheerleader for doing it.  “Oh.  My. God.  You should totally do it.  You totally have the face for it and it would look so awesome.”   No girl should trust the friend who says this.  In the guise of unconditional support, this friend is calling forth the spirit of Charles Darwin.  This wolf in sheep’s clothing knows most every guy prefers girls with long hair.  This is no secret.  It’s a fact.  But this traitor also knows that, under the pretense of being a good friend, she’s just subtracted one less attractive female from the herd for a while.  And in the race for the ever-elusive “good guy”, she’s just reduced the field of competitors by one.  With friends like these…

So the girl gets the radically short haircut.  And then she cries in the chair, necessitating the hair stylist to really earn her tip by having to spend 20 non-hair-cutting minutes re-assuring the girl and comforting her.  The hair-stylist, by the way, probably knows the hair cut is a bad move, but hey, everyone’s gotta earn a living.  And then the girl cries when she gets home and sees the new ‘do in her mirror at home.  And then later when she passes by that same mirror.  And then the next morning when she can’t get hair to look as good as it did in the stylist’s chair.  And then that weekend, when she comes home after going out with her friends and realizes that her friends got more attention than she did.  And then later on in the week when she overhears a co-worker ask if she is gay.  And then again when she goes home to visit her family and her mom (and sister) sees the new haircut and are dismayed. 

So the causal event which would have ordinarily set our girl back a week or so has now turned into a 6 week event, at least until her hair grows back. 

A guy could have avoided this entire situation.  Except that men rarely know how to communicate with women on the best of days and with the easiest of topics.  The decision whether or not to get a really short haircut is a minefield, and thus it takes a deft touch in dealing with it.  Its tough to juggle both being supportive AND steering them away from a decision that men KNOW will both cause and lengthen further suffering.  Still, even a guy grunting “no way should you do that” would at least help, and more importantly, would be more honest than a girl’s girlfriends on this matter.  When it comes to women, guys for the most part don’t have ulterior motives.   They just have the one.