Courage

I need to get up my courage to do something hard. I've been worrying about it for a couple of months now, and have avoided taking action. I can always rationalize doing nothing -- this isn't something that's terribly urgent. But eventually it will need to be done.

I want to leave my hairdresser. I know who I want to leave her for. There's this other woman, who cuts my friend B's and my friend J's hair. They rave about her. My own hairdresser is a tough cookie, though. She's well-connected. She would be PISSED if I left her, and also personally hurt and offended. She holds grudges. And she's pretty good at what she does. While my hair was short she did things with it that always got me good compliments. But I am ready for someone else. My hair is getting long now so I have just been avoiding the whole thing, letting it grow. But I'm thinking a trim, a few little wispy layers perhaps, and I want to try this new chick. I just don't dare to do it.

The last hairdresser I had, before the tough cookie, I shared with a friend and I just stopped going to him. That put my friend in a really awkward position. He would ask my friend about me every time she went in for a year or two, and she would always stammer and make up excuses ("I think she's letting it grow."). I should have just come out and told him. But what's my excuse? There's not anything, particularly. You're great, but I feel like a change. I have an itch. I've outgrown you. It's not you, it's me. I just can't commit. It all makes me feel like a jackass. So I'm just letting my hair grow until I figure it out.

Comments

[mad]

I am of absolutely no help on this topic. I become so attached to my hairdresser that when the need to switch arises (because he or she moves to a salon I can't get to conveniently, retires, goes to the great beauty parlor in the sky, or simply loses the magic touch with my nightmarish tresses) I experience paralyzing, stomach-churning terror. I kept my high-school stylist for almost 15 years (despite years of living far, far away from her), and she carried me from dyed-red mohawks to sophisticated short dos to longer, curlier styles. I'd occasionally be forced to get an interim cut elsewhere, and would have to screw up my courage and close my eyes tight while someone new snipped away.

After I finally cut that particular cord, mostly for convenience reasons, I spent a few frustrating years searching for someone with the right touch and the patience to deal with my difficult mane. Now that I've found him, in the form of a 6-foot-two, 300-pound, tattooed-and-tongue-pierced sweetheart of a guy, I don't think I could handle the trauma of switching again.

But someone could compile a terrific anthology of essays by women on "how my relationship with my hairdressor reveals my dating patterns." Shall we collaborate?

[Richard Ames]

You're cheap & fickle. Sure the other hairdresser might be able to do some fancies that your current one can’t, but isn't that life? What ever happened to loyalty? In 30 years I've never left a stylist. I should be bitter because they’ve left me in droves to either have children, or leave the state, or otherwise entertain an experience wherein I was no longer necessary. But I have my memories, as well as the satisfaction of knowing that I didn’t run off willy nilly for some imagined better cut.

[Eloise]

So you had an easier time leaving your job than your hairdresser? Hmmmmm....