#YoungProfessional: A Guy Walks Into a Barber Shop
by Brent McDermott
SEVEN STRANGERS HAVE cut my hair in the past eleven months. I’m ready to make a clipper commitment.
The conversation is always the same. “So… what are we doing today? How much do you want to take off the top?” Next, some mindless chatter about the weather, and the day’s remaining errands. Finally, the barber sizes me up, sees a shaggy beard, horned rim glasses, and asks, “So, uh, you’re in grad school then?”
Free “life hack” for any readers out there: the fastest way to get under the skin of a 30-year-old young professional is to assume he is a student. Don’t get me wrong. I’m flattered that strangers instinctively think I’m qualified and clever enough to be a grad student at U-M. However, the last time I set foot in a lecture hall was seven years ago and I plan to keep it that way.
After unpacking my U-Haul in Ann Arbor last spring, I set out to find a barber.
When I walked into Rush’s Barbershop on Broadway, you could hear a pin drop. I’m a white guy and I could feel five sets of eyes (six if you count the poster of Johnnie Cochran on the wall) trying to figure out why I was there.
After forty-five minutes of Ann Arbor’s most iconic barber, Johnny Rush was still trying to figure out what to do with my mop of sandy brown locks. Peaking at my watch, I realized that a meeting with my boss, a woman with zero patience for tardiness, would be starting in fifteen minutes. I politely asked Johnny to wrap it up. He may have rolled his eyes. My apron off, but my mane shedding like a golden retriever’s, I asked him if I could use the sink. I nervously turned on the water and it shot out like a fire hose in all directions. Needless to say, I did not return.
Because of my age, I don’t see a lot of my friends as often as I would like. My girlfriend is a grad student, and we see her friends quite a bit. But most of my friends from school are either married, have moved, have kids, or all three. When that happens, you’re lucky to grab lunch or coffee once a month. And, if they are married or have kids, there is a mutual feeling of lifestyle exoticism that creates an invisible barrier that gets harder to break each time. So, if I’m seeing my barber as often as my roommate from college, I want him to be someone I genuinely like hanging out with.
Fast forward a month and I’m sitting at a stool at Campus Barber. The coiffeur follows the usual script, but had an air of eccentricity that I like. Testing the waters as he starts in on my overgrown mop, I asked about his family after spotting a wedding band. We trade stories about our dogs, and ten minutes into things, I’m fighting goose bumps- have I found the barber of my dreams?
Then, things got uncomfortable. When I tell him I’m not a big drinker after he asks which bars I like, his eyes light up. He asks if I’m in “the program,” which I am. And then, without prompt, he delivers a 30 minute open-talk, walking me through all twelve of his steps. Looking for reciprocation, he asked me what my story was. A story that I save for meetings, I tell him.
The maiden voyage at the barbershop is like a first date. The rules of conversation are nearly identical. You make small talk, keep things light, and hopefully your partner tells that you look handsome when you part ways. The last thing you want is for someone to tell you about hitting bottom within fifteen minutes of shaking hands. I assure you that I’m very open about my sobriety. But I’m also tactful about reading my audience, and the details I provide.
Another month passed and I spotted a barber’s pole near the supermarket where I buy my produce. After my first visit there, I’ve never received more compliments from friends and co-workers. The following month, I went again. Same results. The dealbreaker? I had wandered into a Vietnamese barber shop and no one there spoke English. I felt guilty giving them the Irish goodbye, but despite the resounding warmth and kindness I felt on both visits, there was something missing. As cliché as it sounds, sometimes you wanna go “where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came.”
When you are new in town and don’t know anyone, a barber shop can be a great social utility. Moving to Detroit after undergrad, a barber in Corktown told me where to find cheap PBR and decent pot. He also introduced me to other regulars with similar tastes, who became good friends and a mischievous influence.
More futile attempts at finding my barber have resulted in more strange encounters. An odyssey of 9/11 “truthers,” not-so-closeted racists, and plenty of hipster du jours who always want to shave one side of my head. With every visit, I feel more and more like Goldilocks, too fickle for my own good. Is this is a symptom of crossing the tracks to the other side of 30?
When I told some friends what I was writing about tonight, I found out that my friend Anna cuts her husband’s hair. Rubbernecking her partner’s freshly cropped head, I wondered what kind of sink she has in her kitchen.
Brent McDermott is a graduate of Central Michigan University. He works at Aventura in downtown Ann Arbor and writes for The Ann Arbor Independent about decidedly non-hipster life as a 30-something non-student in Tree Town.