The life and death of my manbun

Before, and after.

"There is a time and a place for everything," goes an apocryphal quote. "It's called college." Now, this may be a bit too clever and a slight exaggeration, but this aphorism captures something real about college life: It's a time to do and to be whatever. When you're a college student, you tend to have most of the privileges of adulthood and far fewer of the responsibilities. It's a combination that invites a lot of experimentation, a lot of trying on and shedding different identities and different selves, and a lot of risk-tasking.

I had my fair share of all those. But if college is mainly for doing and being things that working, functioning adult life precludes, then I think it's fair to say that I took the fullest advantage of my senior year of college by growing it out long enough to put it up into manbun. I'd been toying my whole life with having long hair; see, for example, this picture of me from the fall of my freshman year of high school.  

The reason for my disappointment in this picture is a whole 'nother story.

Yet in all of my prior instances of long hair, I promptly restrained my hippie inclinations and returned to a pretty close cut, goaded by my parents and by a desire to retain respectability. But going into my senior year of college, I knew that I didn't want to waste what could be my last-ever--and, at the very least, my last in a while--chance to keep my hair long for long enough for it to become my dominant physical trait. So, in May of 2014, I got my last haircut, and then settled in for the long haul.  

Pictured: Me, a few weeks after my May haircut, with my sister, Claire, in Joshua Tree National Park.

Waiting proved to be the hardest part of my hair odyssey. I made it through most of the summer without it becoming too much of a bother. But once fall--and senior year--approached, I began to endure my awkward transition phase. My hair was too long to ignore, but not yet long enough for me to do anything with it except run my hands through it after showering and hope it fell well. Not even my sisters could help me.

Pictured: My twin sister Colleen, doing the best that she can.

At around this time, I began to wear headbands while running. They helped a little bit, but I felt--and looked--pretty silly wearing them. But I was happy to keep the hair out of my eyes, and to keep the sweat from my hair from dripping into my eyes.

Pictured: Looking silly.

 

Pictured: Still looking silly.

Pictured: Looking silliest of all.

Finally, around early October, I'd had enough. During the race pictured above, I'd actually had to adjust my headband mid-race several times, so voluminous my locks had become. Fortunately, my sister Annie, who attended the meet, had a solution: the man-bun, which made its debut in this photo.

The manbun makes its debut.

This solution proved ingenious. Though my hair was still not long enough for me to require a manbun at all times, it was a must while running. When Forrest Gump miraculously ran out of his polio braces, he said that, from then on, wherever I was going, I was running; when I first tried the manbun, from then on, I couldn't run without it. For in addition to keeping my hair out of my eyes, my manbun gave me a definitively runner-like look of the sort I've wanted ever since I started running. Having such a bizarre hairstyle made me actually look like a runner, and a legit one at that.

Pictured: Me, looking legit.

Pictured: Me, on the far left, looking legit, along with Joshua Mirth and Luke Hickman, also legit.

As fall became winter, I ignored entreaties from family and friends alike to get a haircut. I decided, instead, to keep my hair long the whole schoolyear; ideally, I would go for an entire year without a haircut. As my hair grew longer, I found it ever more practical to wear a manbun even when I wasn't running, which I eventually did almost all the time. On the conservative campus of Hillsdale College, I had by far the longest hair of any male; in fact, my hair was longer than that of many females on campus. It became my dominant physical characteristic, an outcome I had sought from the beginning. And I continued to look good and runner-like while running.

Pictured: Running well and looking good (from the race I ran my 5k PR) (Photo: Dave Mexicotte).

Hair long enough for a manbun did not come, however, without downsides. Even before the winter, I had to spend more time in the shower, I actually had to comb my hair, to use conditioner, to make sure I always had a headband with me, etc. And then when winter rolled around, I found myself confronting the curious problem of my hair freezing if I left a building too quickly in which I had showered (one of my sisters solved this problem by giving me a blowdryer for Christmas). And that's not to mention the two words with which my long hair gave me a distressingly intimate acquaintance: split ends. Still, for all that, I enjoyed not only my long hair, but for being known for having it. And I kept it all the way through my last collegiate race.

Pictured: Me, starting the last lap of my last collegiate race.

Not long after this race, though, I flew to Washington, D.C. for a job interview (in the span of one week, I had my last college race, got a job, and graduated). And having hidden my long hair in one Skype interview before this, and seeking to work for a politically right-of-center organization, I knew that I had to remove my lion's mane, to shear my Sampson's locks. And so, one year ago today, I went into a local salon and watched as hair after after fell to the floor. A couple of my own tears may or may not have joined them.

In the year since my long hair disappeared, I have not let it come anywhere close to the length it once reached. I am a working adult now (I'm convinced that my decision to cut my hair played at least some factor in this, or, at the very least, that not having cut my hair would have hurt my chances). And I'm not just a working adult, but one who works for a politically right-of-center organization, and spends much of his time with other right-of-center organizations and people. Perhaps due to some lingering prejudice from the Vietnam War-era, conservatives still, on the whole, dislike and distrust long-haired freaky people (unjustifiably so, in my view, but whatever).

Because I don't know how long it will be--if ever--before I can contemplate having a manbun again, though, I am exceedingly glad I took advantage of my senior year of college to do just that. For once in my life, I indulged for an extended period in this silly passion of mine. I loved the way it made me look, both when I was running and when I was not. And I am happy that I will be able to look back on photos such as the ones I included in this post when I am older and remember what I did and how I looked. It was more than just a silly thing to do in college when I had the freedom and the inclination to do so. It was an attempt to forge for myself a unique identity--an attempt that I consider a success.

This picture, of Luke, Joshua, and my college Coach Joe Lynn, hangs in the latter's office. When I visited during homecoming in the fall of 2015 and saw it, I first asked him "who's that chick in the middle?" I then  realized it was me.

Will the manbun ever come back? I'm not sure. At this point in my life, it doesn't seem quite right, for the reasons I mentioned above (and not to mention the bad rap manbuns seem to have these days). Yet I truly did like how I looked after the awkward transition phase. Who knows? Maybe it will come back.

Someday.

But not yet.

Not yet.