Vanity

[seryn]

Today when I got my hair cut, I looked at the floor afterward and all the hair was still dark but it wasn't anything approaching brown (which is my normal color). It's all that dark gray color, like if you had black fabric and left it in the sun for too long.

I've been dyeing the temples and streaking the leftover dye through the rest. But now it looks like that's a delusion I cannot allow myself. Dye or do not, there is no touch up in "just the gray spots".

I did an all-over brown tonight. I still get at least 4 uses out of a single-use dye box because I have such short hair. You can't mix in the containers they give you multiple times, but lids from a quart of yogurt work pretty good.

When I was a child I didn't understand why my mother dyed her hair. Admittedly if I were still married I might find it easier to let it go. But the thought of trying to date with gray hair really terrifies me. Okay so I admit that I'd rather meet attractive men who are my age, but most of them are divorced with children. It's a little shallow of me, but I'd kind of like to date someone 15 years younger. Not, you know, repeatedly. But the idea of being able to attract someone who is still pretty and hasn't given up entices. No idea how I could be so vain since I didn't care before.

There was something I saw where the guy's parents were thinking about divorcing because they thought there must be something better out there. The whole thing goes by and he doesn't know what to say because he is divorced and dating sucks. He finally tells his parents to get a divorce if they want to but to remember that now when they're dating they'll have to get naked with someone new. I'm pretty terrified of that myself actually.

I'm kind of hoping that I can be pretty enough and nice enough to be attractive while still being emotionally healthy. Keeping my fingers crossed that TV is wrong about what happens on first dates. All those women on TV who sleep with guys they've just met... their apartments are clean. My sheets have bleach spots on them from when I was bleaching my hair to dye it blue (the blue didn't stick to the sheets either.) My flannel sheets don't match since mix and match the fitted and regular and one of them almost dissolved from wear. My kitchen and bathroom are clean, but I'm sure not having a sleepover. Wonder what real people do when they decide they want to have an intimate relationship with someone they're dating? Because we know no one keeps their house in that kind of state all the time.

Next I'll have to vacuum in order to keep up my vanity.

Comments

[thistleingrey]

I guess they cross their fingers and hope that the things they let go in a household are in an assortment compatible to what their prospective partner lets go. :)

My mother still dyes her hair. I shan't--too much baggage from decades of people thinking that my hair ought to be a certain color when I've never dyed it. It's nice that the strands (since my late twenties) are light grey or white, not mid-grey, so they look okay against the chestnut that they're taking over.

[seryn]

I wouldn't have started dyeing my hair at all except I wanted it blue/purple. The only reason to dye your hair is if you want it to be different. Otherwise it's an enormous amount of work and maintenance. Everyone else can look in the mirror instead of commenting on your choices. I'm sorry that isn't what happened with you. I'd like to be able to say, "I like my hair just the way it is, have you tried looking in the mirror or do they all break?"

I have temples that are the pale grey kind... I look like a Republican politician! So that was obviously going to need to be helped, but I hadn't seen how colorless the rest of it had gotten until I saw it on the floor. It looks dark enough that I didn't really realize.

There's probably some sort of etiquette for visiting people you're romantically involved with. But there's surprisingly little information available. Maybe I'm not grown up enough to have an affair until I can be bothered to invest in new sheets? I've been discreetly asking people I know how accurate TV's portrayal of how rapidly relationships move is. I know a lot of unattached people. It looks like as one gets older, the pressure for immediate sex lessens. TV makes it look like people don't date anymore--- They go out to places where unsuitable people spend time, choose the lesser evil and have sex with it without knowing its name. That made relationships seem horrendous. But it's apparently not always like that. It helps not to be 23.

[thistleingrey]

Yes, it does seem like quite a bit of maintenance! My temples are pale, too, but the rest of my hair (which is only white-stranded) falls over it most of the time.

I think that no one wants to declare something, then be called out as wrong. :) I dunno--a couple of older friends have said that sex after one evening feels more comfortable to them in that things move faster, there's less life left, etc. It really must depend upon the person.

[seryn]

TV makes it look like sex is expected upon first contact. I'm very much out of practice and, if that's mandatory, I'm not even going to try to play the game. Discreet questioning did result in the information that where you're hunting changes what kind of prey you find.

What I needed to know was that unlike ski slopes, people do not come coded for difficulty level. I could see just wanting casual sex if that wasn't front-loaded with baggage for me. Because I don't really want to get remarried. And I'm not interested in pushing a luggage trolley for anyone else either.

But right now what I want is a casual relationship without expectations of sex. I'm still a little weird about people touching me at all and it's actually worse if they don't mean it. So, obviously the reason I can't have a relationship is lack of good sheets and vacuuming. It couldn't possibly be me and my ongoing issues.

TV makes that look really intimidating.

[thistleingrey]

Agreed about relevance of hunting locations. TV is stupid. :P It would be lovely if people did come with codes, except that it'd make life simpler for certain kinds of predators and not much simpler for everyone else, I guess. (In the former group I mean people who want easy marks to humiliate/etc. grr.)