Can you cheat on your hairdresser and get away with it?

Image: the guilty expression of a woman who’s cheated on her hairdresser (via Thinkstock)

Dear Rosie,

I’ve been to the same hairdresser for a really long time. But recently, a friend convinced me to try someone new, so I went to her guy. It did not go well. Now I desperately want to go back to my trusted and loved snipper who knows me and understands my hair, but I don’t know how to explain my haircut to her. How do I admit that I betrayed her for an ill-advised bit of experimentation on the side?

Have I ruined everything between us?

Signed in shame,

Cheater

Oh Cheater. This is going to hurt so let me just rip it off like a band-aid:

Yes, you have ruined everything. Things will never be the same between you and your hairdresser again.

What were you thinking? You had something really good going on. You had someone special. Do you know how rare it is to have a long-term relationship with someone who cuts your hair in a way that doesn’t end with you smiling politely before leaving the salon in tears?

It’s rare. And you’ve lost it.

There are two kinds of people in the world, Cheater. There are those who are willing to risk everything for the unknown, and those who are content to live with what they have, even if there may be something better out there. You are the first kind.

I bet you always experiment with the Yellow Duck Curry even though you know you love Pad Thai. And then I bet you complain about the Yellow Duck Curry not being that great and sulk while you eat the last spring roll half that everybody was too polite to take.

And now you’ve ruined one of the most important adult relationships you’ll ever have. When you tell your hairdresser what you’ve done, she or he will be devastated. How can you expect her to ever trust you again? Every time you leave it too long between appointments, she’s going to be imagining you with someone else. Even though you promise you cut your own fringe between snips, she’ll never believe you. You’ll be nervous as she wipes away tears while holding a pair of scissors an inch from your face.

Eventually, the trust issues will become too much to ignore. There’ll just be too much bitterness simmering under the surface. And after a long, drunken chat with her friends, she’ll break things off with you. She’ll decide that she ‘deserves more!’ and that she just needs ‘some ME time’.

She’ll post lots of photos of herself on Facebook having heaps of fun cutting other people’s hair. She may even get drunk one night and call you to tell you how she’s totally moved on.

You, meanwhile, will wonder through life alone and full of regret. Every time you get a phone call, you’ll hope it’s her, and every time you wash your hair you’ll close your eyes and imagine it’s her magic fingers massaging your scalp.

You’ll spend your days trying to organically work her into every conversation. “Just a little off the bottom,” you’ll reply, when someone asks you where the July spreadsheets are.

Eventually, you’ll stop thinking about her every second of every day. And you’ll be just about over the pain of making one of the biggest mistakes of your life, when you’ll bump into her, on the street. She’ll tell you she’s happy with her new clients. You’ll mumble something completely untrue about ‘seeing someone really great’.

Then, as you part ways, you’ll try to stop yourself from looking back but you won’t be able to. And when you do, you’ll see that she hasn’t looked back at you.

Because she’s completely over you and your cheating split ends.

So… Yeah. You’ve got that to look forward to. Personally, I’d bail out now to avoid all the pain. Just never go back, and spend the rest of your days as a hairdresser philanderer, going from salon to salon to mask your pain.

At least then you don’t have to face it. But then again, all this is coming from the person who thought Gore Vidal invented Vidal Sassoon, so what would I know?

Have you ever cheated on your hairdresser?