'AITA for refusing to cut my hair for my sister's engagement party?'
"AITA for refusing to cut my hair for my sister's engagement party?"
My sister (22 F) told me (18 M) over lunch thatI would be uninvited to her engagement party if I didn't get a haircut. I have a complicated relationship with my hair. A few years ago, I was going through a very difficult time and I would completely shave my head every other week or so.
I won't get into the details of that, but to make a very long story short, things got better for me and I started to grow out my hair again. Ever since I did, I constantly get asked by my family when I would be getting a haircut and I usually just shrug it off and tell them I don't want to.
Questions slowly turned into rude remarks and insults, but I always tried to ignore them because I told myself they couldn't have known that this was a difficult topic for me.
My sister has been planning her engagement party for a few months now and the demands to get a haircut have increases significantly. It's become the only thing we talk about. I started to get a little frustrated and any time someone asked me, I would give them very firm answers and ask them to stop.
At one point, I had an argument with my mom about this and I opened up to her and explained why I didn't want to cut my hair and she stopped bothering me about it and it made me so happy.
Today I was talking to my sister at lunch when she brought it back up again. She said "About your hair, are you gonna come to my engagement party looking like that?". I stared at her for a second in disbelief and asked "Are you serious?".
She then said "You're not coming then.". Obviously I was extremely hurt by this but I didn't want things to escalate so I simply told her "Fine." and tried to keep eating my food without crying.
She kept berating me for a good 10 minutes and telling my mom to say something and I sat there in silence trying to ignore her. Her reasoning was that she didn't want me to embarrass her in front of her fiancé's family because I looked "like a junkie" and she didn't want to be associated with me. I couldn't take her screaming at me anymore so I went to my room.
A few minutes pass and I overhear my sister talking about me in the living room, telling my mom to "stop feeding into his delusions". At this point I fully lost my mind. I barged into the living room and told her that if she has an issue with me she can say it to my face.
It turned into an awful screaming match with her repeatedly saying that she doesn't care and that she can do whatever she wants. My mom gave me a look and said "She's mad at you because she cares/wants you to come." And that's where things ended.
At this point, I feel like I should just "be the bigger person" and cut my hair but I know that it would make me extremely unhappy. It just feels like this has been blown so far out of proportion and I don't know how to deal with it. AITA?
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
I feel like I don’t have enough info to make a judgement. I am absolutely on your side in that it’s your hair and it can be long, short, or non-existent and that’s fine. However, if you aren’t brushing/washing it regularly, have matting, or it’s a lot of diff lengths and doesn’t look right I don’t think doing the bare minimum is asking a lot. I do not like your sister or family harassing you I am NOT on her side.
My point is this, unless it’s horrendous in some manner that we aren’t aware of, you don’t need to cut your hair and that’s a ridiculous ask. However, if you aren’t taking care of it by brushing and washing it regularly that’s a different problem and you should be doing at least the minimum of care in that way.
I’m guessing this isn’t the case but it is something that would be helpful to know. If she’s literally just mad that your hair is long that’s her problem and a really weird one at that. Either way, your sister (and anyone else pressuring you) are AH’s.
So first, it's your hair and no one can tell you what to do with it. But realistically - what does it look like? I've seen guys grow out their hair without doing trims and at some points it does look really weird, like you would do a double take and think "Why would anyone think that looks good?" I wonder if everyone would be happy if you just had it trimmed and styled, without taking off much/any length.
Without knowing you I know two things to be true here. 1- your hair is NOT the problem, and if it makes you happy then it looks exactly as it should because it’s YOUR hair on YOUR head. 2- Your sister needs a reality check about her wedding.
Asking people to change themselves for it is unreasonable, and that behavior is not likely to simply change on its own. It should be challenged, as you are doing right now. You don’t need to change yourself. Period. NTA.
Well if it’s a length issue then you’re Nta but if keep it messy, ungroomed, dirty, unkept - any of these then YTA. I’m thinking at 18 you probably think you look cool or something but most likely you do not.
Absolutely NTA. Your mom saying "she's mad at you because she cares/wants you to come" is absolute BS. If she cared about you and genuinely wanted you to be there, she wouldn't care about something as trivial as your hair. It sounds to me like she only cares about keeping up some kind of appearances.
My own son has long hair and has off and on since he was 10 (he's now 20). When he was little, I was constantly correcting people when the referred to him as a girl and on more than one occasion had to go full on momma bear with people over his hair.
I tell him all the time that he needs to trim it just because he has horrible split ends, but other than that, guess what. Idgaf, it's his hair and he can do whatever makes him happy with it. I'm sorry that your mom doesn't support you on this. So OP, from one internet mom to you, love yourself and everything that makes you you, including your hair!