Holy Sh*t, I’ve gone Grey?!

You may have read yesterday’s post about the reasons why I was not looking forward to going to the hairdresser today. Unfortunately I completely vindicated my concerns.

It didn’t start well as I managed to walk into the wrong salon! To overcome my feeling of uneasiness of going to the hairdresser I overcompensated, strolled boldly and confidently into the salon and with my deepest voice stated I had a 12.30 appointment.

They smiled, looked onto the computer and then looked concerned and told me they couldn’t find it. I said I had received a text confirmation from them only two days ago and showed them. That’s when they smiled again and politely explained that I was in Toni&Guy and was meant to be in the Rush salon a couple of doors down the road (see below).

In the short distance between the salons I tried to regain a little bit of composure. I managed to fake the confident swagger but the deep voice ended up sounding like I’ve never sounded before. All the staff were very friendly to me, but just like a dog senses fear, they could all immediately recognise my awkwardness.

Yesterday I forgot to mention another hate of mine, the gown they make you wear! It is so emasculating. They then wash your hair and give you a head massage, which is very nice, but then make you walk to your seat with your hair wet and all over the place; it is a walk of shame, displaying your hair publicly at its worst and showing why you need the hairdresser to make it look better again.

No sooner had my bum hit the chair I was asked if I had been anywhere nice on holiday! I was ready with my answer. To be fair, my hairdresser is really nice and we did have a good chat. Well, up until one point.

Being in a salon surrounded by a lot of young and well presented ladies means that I cannot help but notice and my eyes sometimes wander. Oh, I also realised another reason why men often feel uncomfortable at the hairdressers is we are not used to spending so much time looking at ourselves in the mirror, it really is quite disconcerting!

Anyway, my hairdresser is saying something about my hair whilst I am noticing all these lovely ladies around me and I hear her say “Have you thought about having a semi?” I was thinking that I already have one when I realise she is probably talking about something else and I ask what she means. She replies a semi-permanent as I am getting quite grey now?!

Any hint of a semi has definitely disappeared and I remind her that last time she said she liked the greyness of my hair. She confirmed she does but it is greyer now and I may want to use semi-permanent dye to keep little bits of grey but make my hair darker. As she cuts my hair it gets greyer and greyer and I jokingly accuse her of having grey dye in her comb just to freak me out!

But no, I am going proper grey!! I always thought I would never dye my hair, but I think next time maybe I will. Although, now I am home in normal light conditions it doesn’t seem so bad. I guess I will wait and see if my friends make comments or jokes before deciding.

I’m going grey! Oh bum. Oh proper bum.

Jake

Don’t make me get my hair cut

I’ve never liked going to the hairdressers and I’m not looking forward to my appointment tomorrow.

Maybe it’s because I’m a man and have in-built sexist views, but I always feel like I don’t belong in such establishments. Tomorrow’s appointment is at a proper salon place, Rush, where there are never any men there, it is always mostly female staff and customers.

They all smile at me and are very welcoming and nice, but I get that ‘you’re not one of us’ looks. I’m allowed to go in and visit but I’m on their turf and I will never be part of the gang.

I could go to a more male-centric barber but that would not really make much of a difference as my real issues with having my haircut are that I resent having to get it done and the banal conversations you have to have with whoever is cutting your hair.

I know hairdressers are skilled people but I hate having to pay someone to take something that is mine away from me! I feel like I am being exploited by the fact that I can’t cut my own hair due to biological/dexterity limitations.  I’m not there by choice, I’m there because I have to be there and I have to pay for it.

I’ve not yet had a haircut in 2010 and pleased but also concerned at the same time that my hair has not grown that fast so although my hair does need cutting it does not look, in my totally biased opinion, ridiculous. I’ve also got some grey hairs and having it cut shorter always makes it look more grey.

The haircut chat is what bugs me the most as it is all so unnatural to have a mirror-based conversation with someone. The hairdresser is just by your ear and so talks quietly but as you are faced front you have to raise your voice or shout so they can hear you. I’m always getting told off for turning to look at the hairdresser when speaking to them.

I sit there uncomfortably waiting for the inevitable moment the ‘going away anywhere nice on holiday?’ question gets asked, which is, so I’m reliably informed, on page 1 of the Hairdresser Book of Safe Banter. As much as I feel like being controversial and say I am doing a tour of Asia to find the best value prostitutes, I always end up being nice and tomorrow will fully engage in a mundane conversation about my upcoming trip to Spain.

Find out what happened at the appointment, it didn’t go well >>>

It seems I’m not only the only one who does not enjoy going to the hairdressers. Here’s comedian David Mitchell explaining his reasons: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWEa5__ROJg

Can a woman think about nothing?

Men and women struggle to get on as women think too much about stuff and men don’t think enough

A good friend of mine got in touch recently and she was asking my opinion, as an ex-boyfriend of hers, whether I thought she had a strong personality as she was worried she was alienating a new group of friends by being too opinionated and offending them. It turns out she does not really like them that much and so I asked why she was so bothered and to just be herself.

I then suggested she was doing what so many women do and thinking about things far too much and that she should try and do what men are able to do and think about nothing.

“Think about nothing?” she said, “How do you do that? What does thinking about nothing look like?”

I explained that thinking about nothing is not like looking at a black screen, it is when you can look at something but not really focus or think about anything at all. She said she couldn’t do that, if she was looking at a pencil case, she would be thinking about the pencils and pens inside it or if she could see toothpaste she would be thinking about when it would be running out and having to buy a new one.

She said that she gets annoyed with her husband sometimes as it seems like he is moving in slow motion and that she can see the cogs moving in his head as he figures out how he is going to perform some basic task. She said a woman wouldn’t do that, she would keep moving and not need to stop to think.

I feel that women’s brains are constantly moving, like a CD on high speed, whereas men’s brains are more stop and start type machines. This is not to say that either is better as although women’s brains are constantly active, they are not thinking about anything useful. The great capability of the female brain is cluttered with thoughts of some mad insecurity, shoes, feelings, cushions (women have OCD – obsessive cushion disorder), decorating, dieting, worrying/moaning about friends/colleagues, accessories and the 300 million other things that occupy the female brain.

Men, on the other hand, can only focus on one task at a time and the brain can stay inactive until prompted into action by the restless female brain!

I polled my Facebook friends and the overwhelming response was no, women cannot think about nothing.  Here are some of their comments:

That sounds like bliss. No idea how to do it though?

nope. That’s what men do best

But thinking about nothing is still something to think and stress about!

Hmmmmm? Let me think about it?

Eh what? Why would you say that? What is the underlying meaning of that comment?

It is this difference that causes a divide as men cannot understand why women are so highly strung and get upset by everything in life whereas women cannot understand why men are not upset by everything. Men dread being asked by women ‘What are you thinking?’ as often we are just thinking of nothing in particular but we know we cannot say that as it will be seen as being evasive, so we have to make something up.

So I guess what we need to do to make life more harmonious is to get men thinking more and women thinking less, or is that just a silly logical and rational thought, typical of a man?

Why do Couples get to have a Bed?

A friend pointed out the other day the great injustice that takes place when you go to a house party of a friend. I hadn’t really noticed before, but it is so true that couples have always ‘bagged’ one of the beds whereas single people get to sleep on the sofa or on the floor?!

This is a double whammy against singletons. Not only do they sleep alone again, but they have to sleep somewhere uncomfortable. Is it not a bit selfish of couples to take the beds? They get to sleep with someone every night of the year. Surely, for one night they can rough it somewhere and let the single people take the beds?

Come on couples, do the decent thing and be kind to your single friends, the world doesn’t revolve around you.

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Jake McMillan

100 per cent Rubbish!

That is it, I’ve had enough! Something needs to be done about people, notably sports people, using percentages incorrectly about their effort, e.g. “I gave it 110%, but next time I’ll give it 120%”. No, no, nooooooo!

You cannot give 120% effort, the maximum effort you can give, by definition, is 100%, no more, that would be impossible.

Athletes and such like either do not understand or don’t want to say they only gave 95% effort last time and this time they’ll give 98% effort. I guess it doesn’t sound as grand to use percentages properly.

And yes I do understand that when used the term is not meant to be taken literally and is meant figuratively. I do not actually believe we are some sort of android with the capability to check a readout which tells us our percentage effort used.

I am against the use of the term as it is not only wrong, but it sounds totally lame and there are many other words and colourful phrases that could be better used instead.

Please give 100% effort and no more (as you can’t) into making sure we stamp this out.

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Jake McMillan