My first real hair crisis occurred sometime around sixth grade. I should blame myself for this disaster, but I think it’s fair to place a bit of responsibility in the hands of the Backstreet Boys.
On a lazy Saturday MTV binge, “Quit Playing Games with My Heart” flashed on the screen for the umpteenth time, and a particular detail about the video caught my eye.
I wanted that hair. I didn’t rationalize or question it: I wanted the Caesar that swept across the nation in the late 90s along with frosted tips and coordinated dance moves. However, with my straight and poofy Asian hair, I couldn’t achieve these curled bangs without some help. Ensured that I was home alone, I went to my parents’ bathroom and plugged in my mother’s curling iron. I fiddled with a device I’ve never used, pinched a tuft of hair in the clip, rolled, and singed my forehead with that awful, awful machine. With equal parts shame and singey pain I hastily threw the iron back into the cabinet and lived with the rest of the day with one patch of curled bang, and the rest of the week with a patch of burned skin right below it.
I think at that age, you’re just about willing to do a lot of stupid shit in the name of looking attractive. It’s a tender moment of burgeoning adolescence where you slowly realize that the shirts your mom picks out for you from Marshalls aren’t exactly in good taste anymore, especially considering you’ll be hitting middle school the next year. And once this starts there’s no going back. Such is the case with my hair.
Like most aspects of my adolescence, the subject of what to do with the ‘do was molded by influence and trend-following. Through ninth grade the dominant approach was a shellacking of Dep No 5 gel for maximum spike hold. Then my big brother got me into body boarding and the “just finished a sesh” look became king. He also got me into a bizarre habit of ditching the gel and running our mom’s Victoria’s Secret body lotion through the locks. He’s always been the coolest person in any room, so I never doubted what the hell he was doing. Sometimes I wonder the if I ever had a reputation for smelling of Axe body spray and lavender + apricot cream.
These games finally stopped in college, where I set out to express my individuality, which I defined by adopting a hairstyle that every “scene kid” or emo had: the front mullet. I went to such lengths as sleeping in a beanie every night to train my uncooperative hair to sweep down my left brow; except, it never swept down, more like exploded into a mess across my entire forehead. It looked as awful as it sounds.
Why such an obsessive search for the perfect hairdo? Why through money at different pomades, waxes and hair creams to find the product that does your hair just right? In the end, I think that my hair has been a constant source of frustration, in which I always had an idea for how I wanted it to look – from a wavy Bruce Lee to a power sharp Don Draper – but it never worked out. I had certain expectations to replicate a certain coif, but my hair and I always failed. I guess this is the fundamental challenge in defining your own style.
At some point, you can never recreate what you idolize because you are not them. I envy guys who can get into a suit and kill with minimal effort, based on ideal height and proportions. But I’m 5’5″ with – however majestically lean – thick calves and thighs and I gotta work with what I’ve got and let my imperfections roll off. In the case of my hair, I just had to make do.
I prompted myself into this archival analysis because I’ve made a recent, and dare I say, final change. At this stage of my life it’s important to look like an adult, and this transition required some steps that I didn’t notice were necessary.
It seems that many young professionals, as well as some middle-aged men looking to reclaim youth have this problem of dressing brow-to-toe with complete professionalism, but maintaining the hairstyle of the glory days. And I get it. You get your first real job and you dress accordingly, but it never occurs to you that your hair needs similar adjustments, since, well, you always had it that way. The above picture was my first year of teaching, and just, damn. Now don’t get me wrong, I appreciate any man keeping their hair wild and free in the face of conformity. But in my search for lasting style, I had to find something more sustainable.
And I like it. I like that it pairs well with a suit. I like that I can enjoy wearing a cap and not having to commit to it all day to prevent showing some serious hat hair. I like that it won’t droop in 320% humidity like the remains of a house party. I like that I still feel like myself in it, while kinda looking like my dad at that age. Most of all, I love that my wife is the one who cuts it, and she can look at it proudly, and do it again every few weeks from here on out. I love that sometime down the road, when my little boy is ready for a sharp first big boy haircut like mine, he needs to look no further than to mommy.
And that’s the story of my hair. I tried to trim it down as much as I could, throw in sum buzz words, and clip out the rest, but I hope it wasn’t too long. I’ve made that mistake before.
Never again, I hope.
