This Is The Last Year

I know that to a lot of people, their hairdresser is their confidant, their shrink, their priest, all rolled into one. You come in racked with guilt and dark roots and you come out a new man. It’s like a one-stop shop at the Guilt Emporium. You can’t get it better than that. Father O’Shanley may absolve your sins with three Hail Mary’s, but a hairdresser can make your three gay friends go ‘Hail, Mary!’

Hair is just such an integral part of who we are, it’s hard to entrust its care to anyone who charges less than $150 per cut, shampoo extra. I mean, how can I take you seriously, if you only charge $12.99 a cut? Creating a unique look from such instructions as ‘short on the sides, a little off the top,’ or artfully covering up a 4 inch bald spot takes real skill. Obviously, Nicholas Cage has not learned this last lesson.

One may go bargain basement on things that are less visible, less obvious, such as a kidney transplant, but when it comes to our crowning glory, only one who has toiled endless nights at beauty school, whose hands are blistered from no-ammonia bleach, who has done more to promote the gay stereotype, is worthy enough to take my incredibly generous $3 tip.

Some hairdressers are too eager to cultivate this relationship. They can’t wait for you to bare your heart and soul the second you are seated in their chair. For good reason: a repeat customer is one whose weighted follicles are cared for, whose weighted soul can be used for a little bit of blackmail and extortion. They have your name, your phone number, the dates and places you had your trysts with that hunky Irish Catholic with the piercing green eyes and broad shoulders.

But garrulous as I am, I find myself unable to speak in the presence of a hairdresser. There must be something defective in my homo genes that I cannot form meaningful relationships with hairdressers.

Maybe it was because I was brought up in another era when men went to barbershops. The barbers in my youth wore white tunics and smelled like the combination of Ben-Gay, Brylcreem and the sharp astringent they slap on you after every haircut. These men traded crude jokes and hurled their political views over their customers’ heads, but nobody just talked, you know, nobody shared their feelings.

Or maybe I was just traumatized by first experience in a salon.

Very soon after I came out, I started going to the local salon. The hairdresser was very friendly and open and gave me a great haircut and then skillfully mussed it. I started to open up to him over the next couple of visits.

But then something started to feel very wrong, although I was unable to put my finger on it. Maybe because I was often distracted by the hairdresser’s hard crotch pressing on my shoulders under the cape. I couldn’t figure it out. My discomfort continued so I left soon after.

Maybe I can’t share my feelings with someone who just cuts my hair. Maybe they have to do my nails and taxes too.

This is the last year I will have a full head of hair. I can feel it.

Next year, I would have to start avoiding any direct light above my head when I am giving a blowjob. The shine on the top of my head may become too distracting.

I have never understood this before, but now I do:

"With Great Hair Comes Great Promiscuity."

Is all my good hair is being wasted being in a relationship? Shouldn’t I be out there fucking my brains out while my hair can still be styled into the latest ‘do? Should I buy a sports car while I’m at it?

I don’t know how to broach this subject without sounding pathetic and ridiculous. I’m sure Donald Trump feels the same because, well, just look at him. Does he look like someone who is communicating honestly about his hair? Please. With his money, he has more options than that dead squirrel on top of his head.

For me, my deepest, darkest secrets can only be revealed in that most private, most intimate place: a blog. Within the confines of this URL, I can reveal all my innermost thoughts, all laid out in a nice template, comments provided by Haloscan.

I've never discussed this with any of my closest friends. I have not made a pact with them signed in tinted hairgel to tell me when I should stop combing my hair over. Maybe they'll be too embarrassed to say something. I don't know. I don't know how to share this with the people in my life. So, like everything else, it ends up right here.