new thread
Hi there!
I'm new here and would like to introduce myself. I'm not only a Men In Black fan, but J is also my initial. If anybody else also calls him or herself J here, please notify me and I'll think up a different name.
Right. I'm here because I need YOUR help. I've wanted to grow my hair out since I was 13 years old, which is 8 years ago now. I've always found some excuse to cut them back again. One of them was a bet with a cousing that I wouldn't change my hairstyle for four years. It turned out be quite lucrative after I had won it, so I dont really regret it (that cousin's 10 years older and can't complain about her wage). My last excuse was, that I didn't want to "shock" my relatives who hadn't seen me for a year at Christmas. My hair were round about 5cm long at the time. Now they're round about three centimeters long.
I'm fine right now, because I went to the hair dressers only last week... But this time, I want to keep up with it (just like I did last time...).
I don't really think my parents, girlfriend or peers would pressure me to cut them, so I've only to overcome my weaker self.
OK, that's it for the moment. See you more frequently in the future.
J
hi there,
welcome,i hope you stay with us in the long run.I don't mean to be patronizing or anything like that,so if I come across as such,I apologize:you gotta understand that scissors is your WORSE enemy when growing out your hair.I'm totally against the notion of cutting hair during growth,unless it's just for triming the back so the hair will be a little bit even.I personally recomend just forget that scissors and hairdressers even exist until you reach your goal length.And when you do reach it,then you can get maintenance trims every so often to maintain at the length you want AND to get rid of split ends.patience goes a LONG way (pun intended).Also,hairdessers DO tend to screw things up most of the times and cut way more than they are supposed to...even though you are not at that bridge yet,perhaps you should look into self-trimming methods.hope this helps.
-Jacob
Hi Jacob,
thank you for your welcome.
Please anybody of you, don't be upset if I ever trample on your hairy feelings, but as a semi professional cynic it might sometimes be hard to not mention the s word in some contexts. So just in case it ever slips through my fingers, please don't be offended and take it with humor.
I forgot to add a major excuse to my list of the same for letting my hair be cut with scissors and shavers at the hairdresser: I don't like to stick out of the mass. (Which I can't avoid physically, because I'm relatively tall).
And I don't like beeing categorized. I'm no great fan of hard rock or metal. I'm studying information technology, but that's definitely not the reason I want to grow my hair out. I know three out of round about 500 IT students with long hair here. And I'm also studying business studies at the same time. Definitely no place you'd expect a too late born hippy. Which brings me to a nother thing I'm not: A too late born hippy. And I don't want to be taken for one by mistake.
I'm sure some of you don't share my views here but I respect yours and because I don't want you to think of me as a neo-liberal-I-don't-know-what I'll stop with that right here. (Though I always enjoy political discussions).
J
Dear J--
Forget the categories. You are unique in the whole universe. You do not have to fit in. To be happy, you must be yourself.
However, you are addressing a difficult, realistic psychosocial issue which can be defined as the problem of maintaining valued relationships from the past while presenting a new image of ourselves.
When we have long hair, and meet someone new, they either respond positively to us or not, and we do not think about our hair.
But when we meet someone from our past, and we now have a very different self presentation, it is difficult to focus on the here and now, and not obsess about how that person will see us differently. Fact of the matter, they may not notice for our hair is not nearly as important to most other people as it is to us.
It is easy to dismiss this as not important, but we all know too well that getting hired and admitted to a school often depends on how others perceive us. So all to often we "project" negative judgments on ourselves, when the boss is not in the least concerned about our hair length but rather about whether we can use the spell checker properly and maintain a polite mode of response when customers complain.