Hair lingers on the line of being an important quality and something that does cross a man's mind as long as the woman possesses a beautiful smile or personality. I remember when I told the guy in my life I was going natural and he didn't have much to say. Upon later conversations I realized he didnt have any idea of what being natural consisted of. He imagined a unstyled dry fro replacing my straight hair. He assumed women with natural hair refused to style their hair taking it back to the stone age. I quickly informed him of what I planned to do and started showing him women with natural hair and he realized that natural hair is beautiful. He even started pointing out natural women to me while we were out and about. He even made jokes about women on boxes of relaxers and with weaves saying,"Now that's not natural". Unfortunately we didn't work and he never got to see me with my TWA.
The day before my BC, a guy I'd known for a couple months asked for my number. I laughed. He looked at me puzzled and I started to explain how I was going to cut my hair down to 2 inches indicating where my natural hair started on head. He asked why and I told him I wanted to be natural. He shrugged his shoulders and continue to wait for my number. I felt tension the next time I saw him with my new short do. I know that some guys hate short hair and I didn't want him to obviously reject me because he didn't find me attractive. While he would just be one guy and it would be his opinion, the rejection would hurt. He questioned me about my hair not quite coming out and saying he didn't like it. From what I could gather, he just doesn't like my short hair. He wonders why i didn't wait for it to get long before I cut it and I tried to explain but he didn't listen. All this to say i think that men have no idea what natural hair is. Some are miseducated about what our hair will look like. Some have no idea about the stress of the transition process and reject the idea of the big chop when mentioned.
Men and natural hair remind me of a conversation that I had with one of my guy friends.
Me: So what should I wear?
Him: That purple skirt.
Me: Purple skirt . . . .I don't have a purple skirt.
Him: Yea, you do. You wore it for your friend's birthday.
Me: My purple dress . . . .
Him: Dress. Skirt. It's all the same.
Me: No, a skirt begins at the waist and a dress is a connected top and bottom.
Him: No, a skirt is short and a dress is long.
At this point I just threw my hands up and gave up. Men have no idea. So, for those worried about the men in their lives, sit down with them and have a conversation about what they think. Educate them. Wear our natural hair is a pretty new phenomenon and some men haven't been expose to it. Communication may help to wipe away some of the fears that you both have.
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