The Hair Makes the Man

If you've seen me in person anytime after high school, odds are that you've seen me with a shaved head. I started shaving it in college - I got lazy about going to a barber, and doing it myself saved me a few bucks every couple of weeks or so. I understand they weren't the best reasons to make the change, but make a change I did. No one made fun of me and it looked all right, so I ran with it for a while.

Fast forward to last month, and I decided to let my hair grow out. No particular reason, I just figured I'd give it a go again. And then, I started hearing about it from a bunch of people I knew. That list includes:

• My brother, who thought I was trying to impress a girl. He commented that my hair was getting shaggy, I told him I needed to let it grow out before getting a legit haircut. He immediately asked who she was. Because apparently, if I'm trying to impress a girl, the first thing I'm going to lead with is my stylish hair.
  By the same logic, it would seem he thinks I *wasn't* trying to impress the last few girls I've dated. Heh.
• My friend at work, who made sure to pat me on the head a couple of times. This one is slightly worrisome, because it leaves open the possibility that I look like one of those treasure troll toys with the weird hair (I believe the whole point of that toy was to play with its hair).
• My mentor at work. I walked into a meeting we were both in, and he immediately asked, "Wow, where'd all the hair come from?" (me: "yeah, I don't know, it just grows") It wasn't a super formal meeting or anything, but I was amused that it was the first thing out of his mouth.
• A coworker I haven't seen in a while. She said the new-found hair looked good, specifically because I no longer looked "like a 12 year old." Seriously? How does one take that? Is that a compliment, an insult, a back-handed compliment, or some weird mixture of all of the above? Though I suppose if I ever feel like I'm starting to look old, I have the means to remedy that.

So, all in all, I've learned that Bowling For Soup may have been on to something with High School Never Ends (the actual video is fairly juvenile so I'm not linking to it). To paraphrase these great paragons of music, it sounds like I should still care about my hair (and the car I drive), even though I'm not sixteen and closer to thirty five.