If you don’t have long hair its hard to explain the attraction of growing your hair long, but if you do no explanation is necessary. The problem is that most people in the frum community are not used to seeing men with long hair and this throws them off. Back in 2005 I cut my shoulder length hair with much sadness and I really didn’t have to, it was for an internship with the state, turned out that my coworker had hair down to his waist, I was maddened to say the least.
Every year I grow my hair into a raging shag only to have to cut it for various reasons. Mostly to do with job interviews and most recently making myself look like a nice clean cut kid at comedy shows. As with every other time, I am committed to growing my hair out once again, but this time I am kind of going for the ultimate carefree look with the unshaven thing going down.
The problem with long hair is that when you are growing it, it tends to look like crap. Right now I am in the Jewfro stage, my hair tends to stick up in random places or look like a fro without being that cool looking. As if they are being clever, most frummies have decided that I must be going for the streimel look. Once it starts getting real long beyond the public masturbator stage, it gets real nice, but for now I have to relish the in between stages.
The other problem with long hair is dealing with the barrage of inquiries from people who say I will never get married because girls hate long hair. Of course what these people don’t understand is that the girls I like tend to be attracted to guys with long hair or are of the ilk that doesn’t judge by the hair. In my mind its actually beneficial for me to have long hair because it weeds out the girls easier for me. I don’t have to go out with “open minded ex-bais Yaakov girls” because they don’t want a hippie looking dude like myself, it also weeds out the gold diggers and people looking for a nice tame YU guy who wants to settle in Tenack.
Happens to be that I may have to cut it for some reason or another, but for now I’m loving this messy stage and am looking forward to tying it back into a pony tail.