New hairdo eases boy problem, strengthens female bonding

by Laura Arenschield
Culture Editor

For about four years, every time I went through a relationship trauma (also known as a break up), I went to the hair salon. By the time I was emotionally stable, my hair was an inch long all over and in a pretty traumatic state itself.

I don’t know what made me want to start the cycle of cutting and dying. My hair went from dark blonde to brown to platinum to a shade I like to call “Crayola streak,” basically meaning my hair had taken all it could and had begun to fight back — with a vengeance. Apparently hair, like boyfriends, doesn’t deal well with indecisiveness.

During one particular exciting argument with a boy, I decided to dye my bleach blonde hair brown. I thought it might make me look, and therefore feel and act, more mature. My roommate and I walked to the drug store, purchased the most enticing box of brown hair dye we could find and commenced the ceremonious pouring, mixing, soaking and rinsing procedure.

At the end of playing beauty parlor, my hair was a sexy shade of mud-gray and I was out $80 from paying a professional to fix it.

“Vhy didn’t you read zee box?” the hairdresser sighed in her devastatingly cool French accent. “You should nevair try to lighten zee hair more than three shades at vonce.”

I remember thinking that it was easy for her to say — if I had an accent, I’d probably think of that too. But instead of turning it around with a brilliant comeback, I grimaced (my version of a smile when I’m embarrassed) and let her weave my hair through a plastic babushka. I like to think I was an adult about the whole thing.

Even though it took about a month to correct the damage to my hair (and another three months to correct the damage to my dignity), I might relive the whole thing again if I had the opportunity.

It was a bonding experience. My roommate and I talked about how beautiful I was going to be when we were through, ate chocolate chip cookies, bashed men for being the scum of the Earth and laughed about our witty way of dealing with the problems in our lives.

The point isn’t that I made myself look stupid, although she likes to remember it that way. The point is we dealt with something bad in a creative way.

Today is Valentine’s Day, and I know some people will spend it mourning their singleness and being sad and bitter. Really intense scientific research shows that being unhappy will ruin your day. Don’t let it happen to you.

You can have a Valentine that’s not romantic. One who won’t get mad at you for buying a funny card instead of a meaningful one.

You can have a Valentine like my roommate, who laughed and grabbed her camera when my hair looked like the sky on a rainy day, snapping some blackmail photos before telling me it was going to be OK. I never would have let a boyfriend get away with something like that.

This year I hope I won’t be heading out to take out my love-life aggression on my hair. But if I do, I hope I’ll have a friend like my roommate there to help me find the humor in the situation. And I hope, this year, everyone else will too.