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Every high school and university in the U.S. has at least one of them: the hair boy. The one who grows his hair out, not just for a transient shaggy 'do but over the course of years, and is widely identified with his long locks.
Those who don't know him by name will refer to him as "that boy with the hair," and his tresses are easily the dominant element of his look.
Classmates will tease him about his needing a haircut but he'll never seriously entertain the idea of getting one, and over time his hair gets longer and longer.
Are you a hair boy? Do you know any?
I'm pretty sure I'm my school's hair boy: I've been growing my blonde hair for five years and now, at over two feet long, it tumbles in thick waves halfway down my back.
Anyway, what's your take on hair boys?
I'm no longer at HS or Uni but I'm certainly the "hair boy" in my large office and get referred to as such (though possibly other names out of earshot!).
Keep growing! Others will get jealous and copy - and enough of you will encourage the international trend that has already begun.
Damon
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I guess you could say my sons are both "hair boys." My older son, on the left, just turned 11, and my younger son, on the right, will be 4 in a couple of months. Both of them wear their hair long simply because they prefer it that way. Although our kids are homeschooled, they are all involved in various athletic and cultural activities. Other than the occassional case of being mistaken for girls (which is understandable, due to their pre-pubescent ages, and which they both brush off without being bothered), they haven't really had to deal with any significant pressure to cut their hair.
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That is really cool, Val. I wish I had a choice like that when I was young, but most public schools did not allow boys to have long hair. That changed when I was in high school about 1969 or 1970.
A word of caution here: When climbing trees, it is best to tie up loose hair. Loose hair can get caught on branches, possibly resulting in serious injury. Tailing it and then securing it under a bandana or a tuque works well.
Scott
Thanks, Scott, and thanks also for the words of caution... you make a good point, and your advice, as always, is sound.
--Val
I and several friends did fit that description in Highschool (late 60s) but by college it was so common as to be expected. When I started letting my hair gorw over the last nearly 21 months, I did indeed become the "Guy with the ponytail". However, there have been no problems.
I guess I would be classified as one in my family. Everybody just has regular haircuts on both sides of my family, as well as my wife's side. And, then there's me with hair mid-back length. Most have accepted it, probably shaking their heads when I'm not there to see them do it. People might remember a post I put on the board not too long ago, where I mentioned about a certain sister-in-law who went WAY OVERBOARD in her attempts to let me know she didn't like it, including insulting me in my own home. Well, those days are over! I let her know that talking to me that way (in my house, or otherwise) was way out of line. I also informed her that she would NOT do it again! She has since wiped me out of her life, as if I don't even exist: Blocking me on Facebook, refusing my telephone calls, etc., just because I stood up for myself and what was important to me. Oh, well...
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OKCdude, that is the best thing that could have happened! If you recall, in my opinion, I said that you needed to eliminate her from your (and your family's) life as much as possible. I honestly thought it was going to be much more difficult to do then you have said it was, but I am glad to hear of this good news! Hoping your life is much more peaceful now. :)
Laura, Thanks for your reply. I guess it was pretty easy, at that. It boils down to the fact that she has always been used to feeling like she had the right to put somebody in their place any time she felt the urge--which is pretty often! When I finally got tired of it, I said what I had to say. And over the weeks that followed, I realized she had a total meltdown because of it, removing herself completely. Like I told my wife, if this person is going to act like I don't even exist unless I give her permission to talk to me like I'm garbage under her feet, then forget it--I don't need that. My wife agrees and everything's fine.
Steve
I can't speak for any other generation but I'm the "hair boy" you speak of at my college. I'm 19 and have hair that is just past my shoulders, which is not very long when compared to some of the gentlemen on this website, but people seem to be quite accepting of my golden locks, lol.
Hello Slim you have beautiful hair, it looks so long and thick, at the length its at it looks great on you. Take care.
Tom(Hairboy)
Dude, your hair rocks. Grow it long as hell. I'm 18 with hair halfway down my back. I'll post a picture soon.
Yep, there was a couple of guys in my school with long hair. Mid back or longer. I was and still am friends with them. They were in my class back in 02, since then, they still have their hair. Off and married, have their own families and make a very good living.
My hair was not unusually long in uni, but I was the hair boy at an early job. After then, when it started getting particularly long, I either worked with other longhairs or hung out with people where it just wasn't a major thing.
When I was a bus driver (and before I mostly kept my hair up) usually it was not "boy" but "long haired (a**hole/b*tch/driver/etc.)". Like Ken, I am a long ways past being "boy" anymore, but I do get referred to as the "long haired" one some...less than before, as many people don't realize the length since it is usually up.
That was definitely me in high school and uni.
Back in high school I was painfully shy and I was pretty sucky at being social. But thanks to my hair, most people knew me and I stood out a bit. Most of my friends would throw around the usual "get a haircut" stuff, but it wasn't malicious and it never bothered me. Usually it gave me the strength to keep growing my hair! If anyone had a problem with my hair, they kept it to themselves. I didn't associate with anyone who might have given me a hard time about my hair, because frankly they weren't worth my time.
As for uni, well I was a lot less shy, that's for sure. I was definitely know in my friends group, and a few wider circles than that as well as that guy with the hair. And with the amount of time I spent at the pub on campus, most of the other regulars probably knew me at a glance as well. The staff at the pub certainly got to know me :P
Plus in uni, a lot of girls would be excited and interested in my long hair, and often talked to me about it. If I liked girls I'd have been pretty happy I think. Sadly, any gay guys who came to talk to me about my hair only did so to insult me. I told them to get lost. People like that aren't worth my time. An I have to say, staying away from those sort of people made my life a lot better.
I like Ken's title of 'Hair Geezer', and I think I just might be one too, LOL!
Back when I was growing up practically everyone had 'long' hair, from high school, through university and into my first job in an electronics lab. However, it was mostly only shoulder length or thereabouts. As I moved on to 'better' jobs I was increasingly the only guy with 'long' hair.
It only dawned on me in my mid twenties that my hair wasn't really long in absolute terms when a girl told me I didn't have long hair, although most people would have said that I did. I took that as a challenge to grow it much longer, and so I did.
It's funny that such a comment should have had such an effect on me, but I suppose it was because my concept of my freaky hippie identity was bound up with having long hair. OK, I admit it. It still is, LOL!
It's not as if I was ever involved with her. She was a tenant in a house where I lived at the time, and yet she was not even legal age. She was 15 when she moved in. Her mother lived in Switzerland and let her live with two twenty-something guys (the other one was the landlord) so she could go to high school in England. Either she was impressed by how responsible we acted, or maybe she saw our hair and thought we were gay, LOL! Well, I'm not, and I can't speak for the landlord, but he had been married to a woman, although his wife had left him.
She used to wander around half dressed and I can't say I wasn't tempted, but not enough to go after 'jailbait'. Then this other guy, just 20, moved in, and I needn't draw a diagramme, but her age didn't bother him.
This is becoming one of those stories that old geezers tell that everyone's heard before, and they just smile and nod, LOL!
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When I was 15, I dated one of my school's hair boys. We are friends today, some 20+ years later.
My son, who is in high school, grew his hair long for 2 years -- he loved it! (And many girls loved it too!) He routinely received negative comments from a few school staff, but it was always the same few people, and he did not break the dress or conduct code. One of his female coaches loved his long hair (in a mom-like way, not a creepy way). :)
When I would pick my son up from after school sports activities, occasionally I would see this one male student who looked like Slash. His hair was dark and long and curly, covering most of his face, and he wore a top hat like Slash too. It was awesome! There were a handful of other long-haired male students, but the Slash look alike stood out the most.
There used to be many more. But over time, they all began to cut or even shave their heads. I'm one of the two last hold-outs.
When I was an underclassman, the three coolest guys in the marching band had long hair. The astonishing thing is that one of them, named Richard, managed to beat cancer permanently with his long locks intact. His shirt, which read "F*** cancer" (without censorship), always made my day. I do not know about Rich, but the other two visited the band after graduating high school. They both had shaved heads, which made me sad. That was the year I had shaved too, since my mom dragged me to the barber and I decided to go all-out. My hair was more dreadlock than hair back then because I didn't maintain it; that, along with my White complexion (White people should never get dreads in my opinion) caused me to just balls-to-the-wall shave it.
Now I'm probably in Rich's position, to a degree. The only other longhair in the school plays bass drum on the field, and though he's four years younger then me, he and I are pretty cool with each other. At the end-of-the-year party I made him promise me that he would never cut off all his beautiful red locks. He needs to carry the torch for future longhairs in the school after I graduate. ;)