Something for the Weekend

In recent years I have got into the habit of having a single, annual haircut, generally at the point in the early summer when the prospect of combining heat, humidity and the still relatively generous head of hair my genes have bequeathed me starts to become an unpleasant reality.  This week was haircut week.  I went from scruffy collar-length to neat above-the-ears in fifteen minutes.

Conveniently, there's a hairdresser located in our university's Student Union, so I use that.  I'm sufficiently a boy of the "long 1950s", though, never to feel entirely comfortable in its unisex atmosphere.  As so often, "unisex" here means "a female environment in which men are tolerated".  There are too many mirrors, smells, lifestyle magazines, and pastel colours for a graceless lump like me to feel at home.  The pounding club-style music does nothing much for me, either.

I liked the old-fashioned barbershop that closed a decade or more ago, where I used to go with my son.  It was one step up from a well-run car-maintenance garage in ambience, but only one step.  Functional, sparse, with tools laid out ready to hand, and reassuringly under-decorated.  The barber, George, knew his trade, how to match cut to head, and how to read personality.  I never had to ask to have a bit more taken off, and the question, "Would you like anything on it, sir?" was a question expecting the answer "No".  George's well-honed instincts also told him that I did not require interrogation about my holiday plans, or the prospects of England against Australia in the Ashes.  He would work in a deep, austerely contemplative silence, broken only by the snip of scissors and the buzz of the electric trimmer.  Back in the day, I imagine those ten minutes getting a trim were the longest most men ever spent looking at themselves in a mirror.  Prolonged eye-contact with oneself fosters uncomfortable self-appraisal -- no wonder most customers preferred to chat about the weather.

However, there was also none of the passive pleasure of having two young women -- one to wash, one to "style" -- in intimate contact with one's head.  In the mind-set of the 1950s, that would have been verging on the scandalous: positively Profumo.  Habitual segregation by gender meant that any physical contact fizzed with erotic charge.  A casual touch of the hand when passing change in a shop was tantamount to an indecent proposal, and therefore carefully avoided.  But sex did rear its dodgily-coiffed head in the barbershop.  Alongside the scissors and razors, dangling leather strops, and tubs of Brylcreem, boxes of condoms were openly on display.  The barber's famous final question, "Something for the weekend, sir?" was the cue to palm a packet of three discreetly to the customer.

Where I realise I probably differ from those men of old, and most men even today, is in a willingness to be seen with radically different lengths of hair.   It's curious how rigidly guys stick to a chosen length and style. It's a high-maintenance approach.  I lost the habit of "popping in for a trim" when I let my hair grow to chest length after leaving school, and never regained it.  Now, I enjoy the shape-shifting effect of gradually changing demographic, as seen in others' eyes, like a slow-mo werewolf.

It's curious how your tacit approval or disapproval rating shifts. You start off neatly barbered, bristly, and a little hyper-masculine.  The suit-and-tie crowd acknowledge you. The edges gradually get knocked off that look, and you become Mr. Windblown-Casual, who lives for the weekend out on his boat.  Then, somewhere around three quarters of the way through the year you pass through a barrier of respectability, and find yourself back in the fold with the sub-cultural types.

I don't know whether my body-language mirrors the hair, but I suspect it may: in the final weeks before haircut week my partner tells me I have a positively (or perhaps negatively) defiant, two-fingers vibe.

But just now I'm Mr. Respectable again!

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