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Long Hair And Respectability

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I'm curious for your opinion...I'm in my mid-thirties and now have long hair due to the absence of my awesome hairdresser who got married and left the country and I not being able to find a decent replacement this past year or so.

I kind of like my hair long as it is easier to manage, a kind of Fabio thing going on, but I seem to not get the same respect from strangers and even friends as if I were well-coiffed I've noticed. Does this matter? And I want to ask the "woman of my dreams" (she doesn't know I feel this way about her, should I tell her?) which she prefers, but that would seem like I'm acquiesing. My job isn't affected in any way however.

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I'm curious for your opinion...I'm in my mid-thirties and now have long hair due to the absence of my awesome hairdresser who got married and left the country and I not being able to find a decent replacement this past year or so.

I kind of like my hair long as it is easier to manage, a kind of Fabio thing going on, but I seem to not get the same respect from strangers and even friends as if I were well-coiffed I've noticed. Does this matter?

I dunno from respectable, but I'm almost exactly in my mid-thirties and have had long hair pretty consistently since college. I haven't found that it causes any problems in dealing with other people. Then again, I may just not have noticed. (Also, I'm in the SF Bay Area, which tends to be pretty relaxed about issues of personal appearance. Depending on where in the country you are your milage may vary.)

And I want to ask the "woman of my dreams" (she doesn't know I feel this way about her, should I tell her?) which she prefers, but that would seem like I'm acquiesing. My job isn't affected in any way however.

This is a somewhat disturbing statement. What do you mean by "acquiesing"? The idea of changing an optional value like hairstyle to please a romantic partner doesn't strike me as at all problematic. If you were given a choice between the woman and your hairstyle, I assume picking the woman would be a no-brainer.

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This is a somewhat disturbing statement. What do you mean by "acquiesing"? The idea of changing an optional value like hairstyle to please a romantic partner doesn't strike me as at all problematic. If you were given a choice between the woman and your hairstyle, I assume picking the woman would be a no-brainer.

if the woman says short and i kind of like it long, who do I please? this is my ideal woman, keep in mind!

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Women generally aren't as obsessive over appearance as men, so if she says she likes your hair short, her liking is minor and optional. If you can explain to her why you like it long (and the explanation needs to be an esthetic reason, not "it's easier this way") you can probably change her mind anyway.

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Which do you value more?

More precisely, the question is which do you value more, your hairstyle or the increase in happiness that a different hairstyle would provide to your romantic partner? Both of these things (your current hairstyle and a romantic partner pleased by a different style) are values to you. You can't have both, so you decide which is more important to you and pursue that.

The reason I found your original phrasing disturbing is because young Objectivists sometimes make the mistake of thinking that doing something to please another person is always a violation of the virtue of independence. The implication that 'acquiesing' with this girl's aesthetic preferences is self-evidently wrong smacks of this error, and I don't want you to make it.

if the woman says short and i kind of like it long, who do I please? this is my ideal woman, keep in mind!

I should also point out that being an ideal romantic partner is symmetrical (i.e. if a woman isn't interested in you then she is not your ideal romantic partner no matter how you feel about her). And if a superficial physical issue like hairstyle is a deal-breaker on the relationship then I'd say you're working from a pretty weak foundation. Ideal romantic partners are soulmates, bound together by shared values on the deepest level. A bond like that shouldn't be significantly impacted by a superficial issue like whether to get a haircut.

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