What To Do About HAVING LONG HAIR

This article was written by Matthew Aaron Williams, aka Matt Williams, aka Matty to his close friends. Matt has beautiful flowing hair which he throws around while playing bass guitar for North Carolina rockers He Is Legend.

Some women decide to cut their hair short for a more managable and stylish look. Some men decide to grow their hair out slightly to obtain that “I’m adventurous” look. I do so much, I don’t even have time to cut my hair. My hair is kinda shaggy but I’m in a suit, so I’m kinda “badass” look. The female gender is usually known to have longer hair than the male gender. In some rare cases, though, some men have longer hair than any man should ever have. Such is the case with me. The length of my hair was recently put into perspective after cutting six inches off of it and realizing that it was still down to the middle of my back.

I will say there are obvious advantages to being a dude with long hair, and there definitely are obvious disadvantages. I’d like to take a look at some of those before I begin breaking down what to do about having long hair.

PRO: Ponytails are kinda cool lookin. Mainly if your a redneck, but it still works.

CON: No man should ever have to ask another man (or even a woman) if they have a spare hair tie laying around.

PRO: Long hair on dudes attracts attention. Especially from girls/women. (ie. “Oh my god your hair is so long and gorgeous!” “I’m so jealous of your hair!” “It smells so good!”)

CON: Those girls would never be caught dead dating you. You’re looked at more as a novelty than someone they are attracted to. They will never admit that to your face. Its the truth.

PRO: If you’re in a band, it looks really cool when you play live. Especially when you fling it around a lot. (Do I even have to mention the “windmill”? All you freakin metal heads) But seriously, I’ve had people at shows compliment me more on how cool my hair looked as opposed to how we played.

CON(S): Tangles immediately ensue after flinging your hair around on stage. Tangles that you cannot get out.  Or your hair will wrap itself around something like a guitar headstock, mic stand, drum mics, etc. Your band then yells at you after the show, which goes something like… “Dude, something kept stinging me. I looked back and realized your hair was hitting me as you were headbanging.” or “Hey, can you make sure you’re a couple more feet away from my drums before you start headbanging. You kept deadening my cymbals.” or “Dude, you totally knocked my guitar out of tune when we were trying to get your hair untangled from my headstock”.  Sometimes, whilst in the process of headbunging, your hair finds its way into your mouth and down your throat. That is a strange feeling, mainly because you start gagging, and thats as far as I’ll go with that.

Here’s what I do…

As I mentioned before, my hair is usually super tangled after a show and I don’t always get to take a shower right away. Its come to the point before, where I’ve had to just rip the knots out, and that sucks.  Sleeping with your hair up in a ponytail or doubled over will also cause you to have tangles. You really have to keep your hair healthy. Don’t wash it every day. That will strip your hair of oils that it needs to help keep it healthy and purdy lookin (I’m pretty sure I read that somewhere). I’m not really an expert though. I just know what I do and it seems to work.

When I’m at home I will go several days without washing my hair, or getting it wet. When I do wash it, I use a hydrating shampoo and a hydrating conditioner (a LOT of conditioner). Both are supposed to strengthen my hair, blah blah blah. But it smells like coconuts and I love that (Just thought of another pro/con. Girls/women will want to smell your hair all the time because it smells good. Guys [mainly your friends] will make fun of you constantly for how good your hair smells.). I run a comb through my hair, once I have conditioner in it, to get any tangles out.  RINSE. I squeeze as much water out of my hair as I can before I get out of the shower. Then I towel it dry. I mainly just dab my hair and try to squeeze my hair out into the towel. I do that to avoid acquiring unwanted tangles. I then put a leave in hair strengthener in my hair because I have really fine/fragile hair. I brush my hair while its still wet and let it air dry. Hair dryers suck, and I’m usually not in that big of a hurry. I hardly ever wear my hair down, mainly because it gets all in my face and its just a hassle. I usually wear it in a ponytail, and I usually wear a hat. Unless my friends talk me into putting my hair down because they think it will attract women. They are wrong.

Every woman (and now I) knows that if you put your hair up when its wet it will take it a full day to dry. I’ve had it happen, it sucks. I also know now, along with most women, that after you get out of the shower, dry off, and get dressed you will find your head hair stuck in the strangest places on your body (I won’t mention them) for the rest of the day. That is probably the weirdest thing I’ve come to find out since having really long hair.

I would like to end by saying… If you’re a dude, just don’t have long hair. Thats what to do about it.  Cut it. I look ridiculous, and so do you unless you have boobs and don’t grow hair on your face. There’s a fine line between how long is long enough and how long is too long. I’m pretty sure when your hair, as a man, gets down to your butt-crack…its time to do something about it.

Thank you. I have been dumb.