Posted by Yeah, you read that right, I’m considering getting a mullet. Part of me thinks it’ll actually look good, and that part of me, is a big dumb idiot.
First of all, I don’t deserve a mullet. You know who deserves mullets? Real men. Men who work on the farm all day and drink bud heavies at the tavern all night. Not guys who sit in their bedrooms on a laptop all day with a posture Betty White would condemn who then go to The Broadway and get embarrassingly drunk off of Mai Tais and Green Tea Shots. It’s cultural appropriation, albeit white cultural appropriation which, to be fair, could be a nice change of pace.
I don’t necessarily even know why I’m considering it other then, when else could I ever even attempt a mullet? Back in January after 4 months of not cutting my hair I said “I’m not gonna cut my hair until I’m fully vaccinated”, thinking it’d be like March. Well, finally, at the end of May I got my second shot. I’m now fully vaxxed up and eligible to cut my hair…but I’m scared to lose it. I don’t even remember short-haired djchickenparm. That was September of 2020: an eternity ago. It’s a different world now and I’m a different person…although I’m not sure if a mullet person is exactly who I want to become?
I have a few options of looks for the next few months. I can take a chain saw to my 9+ month project of growing my locks out and look like a normal man. l can keep growing my hair out and start to look more and more like a 14 who got a bowl cut that didn’t grow in right. OR I can get a mullet and have my boys say “lol that rules” while being judged and ridiculed by pretty much everyone who isn’t a 25 year old dude who has a good sense of humor.
So let’s break down these options and what pros and cons there are to each one.
Back to Normal
This, on paper (and pretty much everywhere else), makes the most sense. First and foremost, I am devastatingly single. I was very lonely before the nationwide pandemic happened but now I’m “coming out of my cage” as the Killers would say, but buddy, there is no Brightside. It sucks big fat eggs trying to get back in the game. In the few weeks now that I’ve actually been going out and hanging out with large groups of people (and more importantly, women) it’s been a disaster. I’m not just “rusty”, I am fully degraded into the landfill. I thought people would come into the post-pandemic world ready to settle for someone who can’t keep a succulent alive but I guess I was wrong.
So now I’m on the dating apps and they’ve only made things worse. I finally got a bite from a very attractive girl and the night we were supposed to meet up for drinks…no response from her. Didn’t happen. What little confidence was there became engulfed in flames like the Hindenberg except if my confidence is to scale it’d be more like a balloon.
But what it did open my eyes to is that I look completely different than I do in the photos that I use in my profile. My first pic is me from summer of 2019, looking trim, tan, and clean-cut wearing a collared shirt…I have one collared shirt in my closet right now. One single one. I work from home full-time now, I wear sweatpants and tie-dye shirts with turtles on them to my job now. I don’t need nice clothes.
But look, the way I look right now with my hair nearly touching the back of my neck, Nev Schulman might as well be showing up to any Hinge date that doesn’t fall through the day of. And I know what you’re thinking, “mr parm, why don’t you just use pictures of you with the long hair?” oh great idea, quick question, WHERE WOULD THOSE BE?
What have you been doing the past year where you’re taking attractive photos? Because for the past year the only photo ops I can think of are pretty much:
-Watching the Tom and Jerry movie on HBO Max with my roommates
-Going to the local convenience store for toilet paper and having the lady at the counter tell me they don’t have any but they do have paper towels which “might get the job done”
-Calling my therapist from my car so that my roommates don’t hear about all my problems through my thin ass walls
Any of those sound like great times to snap a pic? NO. Of course not.
So what makes sense is to cut my hair and at least try to pretend like I also haven’t gained weight since those pics were taken. At least then too I’ll look normal, which I guess could also be a con?
The only real bad side of going back to basics would be the missed opportunity. I’ve been growing my hair for 9 months. 3 full trimesters. I can’t just pop this baby out of my butt and toss it into the nearest garbage bin, I gotta nurse it till it’s huge, healthy and people are taking pics of it saying “how cute!”.
Keep Growing My Hair “As Is”
It’s a unique opportunity having long hair. Especially given my personality I think it kinda fits. Everyone has the short on the side long on top look, why should I pretend like I’m normal? Having long hair has been an unreal conversation starter since things opened back up and I’ve been seeing people I haven’t seen in a while. It’s also fun to play with. I’ll tie my hair up in a little top bun at the bar to get a couple giggles or I’ll push it all back when I get out of the shower and pretend like I’m the leader of a cocaine syndicate (whatever that is). Overall it’s just more interesting to have long hair than it is to have short…but it’s also more maintenance.
Some days I’ll wash my hair perfectly, style it beautifully, the humidity is just right, my part is on point, and the long hair will make me look like an absolute rock star….but most days I just get out of the shower, forget my hair is that long and I’ll end up with a pre-coming-out-of-closet Ellen Degeneres look.
This would probably be my most viable option with the exception of one fatal flaw…I can’t grow facial hair. Dudes with long hair need to be able to grow sick beards. That’s the difference between guys like Jason Mamoa and Keanu Reeves as compared to dudes like Cody Ko right now. If you’re going to have the gender-stereotypical “feminine” look of long-hair, you gotta have the beard to back it up. Now I can grow an OK mustache, but lord knows that pairs best with one style of hair…the Mullet.
The Mullet
Ahh yes. The Mully. It’s certainly come back recently but I can’t say it’s necessarily a “nice look”. I think the only guy who was pulling chicks with it was Morgan Wallen but now if you look like him “nice” isn’t the n-word that’s gonna come to mind.
Sure, Miley Cyrus has pulled it off. Comedian Theo Von comes to mind. I see a ton of funny dudes on Tik Tok with it. And I think these people do rock them…but they’re also either fully committed to being funny or have so much swag it doesn’t matter how conventionally goofy that look is. I don’t have enough confidence to pull off weird looks like that and I definitely can’t do anything that might deter more girls away from me than pull them in.
I also feel if you’re a mullet guy people expect you to be a certain way. The life of the party. Cocky as hell. Kinda funny, kinda wild, kinda dangerous…I’m not really any of those things. Sure I like to dance and be goofy but if a stranger comes up to me at a party I usually get scared if anything. One of the biggest problems I have is when people see me IRL after seeing my blog/tweets/instagram and think I’m gonna be this wicked personable cool funny dude when in reality I’m usually just trying to find disco songs to play on the aux and so intoxicated that almost anything I say to you will not make any sense.
But imagine, the week of Fourth of July. I’ve got a beautiful mane down the back, I can feel the breeze on my newly trimmed sides, work is light because it’s the biggest vacation week ever and I don’t have to worry about being judged on Zoom, and America is back in full glory. I’m getting all the right reactions from people for this bit. People are feeling good at the bars gassing me up about it. It’d be the definition of freedom. Wouldn’t that just rule super hard?
Well, probably not, because girls wouldn’t talk to me and I’d get sad. You guys seem to keep forgetting how big a part that plays in this, stay sharp.
The only way I was thinking I could spin it is if I said it was for charity or something. I did find this charity, the Black Dog Institute, that does Mullets for Mental Health which is right up my alley as someone who cares so much about ending everyone having access to Mental Health resources and ending the stigma…but there’s doesn’t happen until September. Idk if I can wait that long. It’d be a long summer, pun intended. Maybe I could do my own thing? Again, this would be solely for my own selfish purposes so that I’d look like a nice guy to the ladies when they ask why I’d do such a thing.
So, yeah, I don’t know. Comment on this or better yet just text me what you think I should do. I haven’t been on social media lately really (which I might do another post on at some point but it’s not really a nuanced take other than that it’s been brain poison for me). So if you are reading this because I posted it on Instagram or Twitter or something I’m not gonna see any DMs or replies just because I deleted the apps from my phone. So yeah, text me. Relay to me what the general consensus is. Thanks. Much love.
What a weird post idk why I felt the need to write this lmao.
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