The One Hair Question I Absolutely Hate!
Is That Your Real Hair?
For reference sake, I call myself "The Alopecian". Simply, Alopecia means hair loss. As you might imagine, through the years I have had to endure some uncomfortable conversations from time-to-time. The worst though is how unconsciously insensitive folks can be leading to me to the worst question ever I’ve dealt with dealt with over the years...
IS THAT YOUR REAL HAIR?
Let’s put it this way, it depends on how you approached me. If you liked my hair style, then just say that and my answer will be, “no, this is not my real hair but thank you for your compliment”. If you chose to be all ghetto and loud, please, the lack of tact and respect are clearly missing an my answer is likely to be, “no, I lost my hair to an autoimmune disease when I was a teenager”. This is my defensively way of saying, “go crawl under a rock as you’ve forced me to do”.
Understand That Sensitivities Are Important
You say sensitivities? There are a variety of reasons that a person may not be sporting au natural or God’s given mane. For instance, they may be suffering from a number of things:
Chemotherapy
Traction Alopecia (hair loss resulting in tight braiding, ponytails, or any style that pulls the hair unnaturally)
Autoimmune Inducing Alopecia
Male Pattern Baldness
Simply, A Bad Hair Day
Those of us walking around bald and choose to wear wigs or coverings, a lot of the time it’s because something unfavorable happened. The image at the start of this post are my eyebrows. Are they mine? Are they amazingly perfect? If you look close or if you are an expert in permanent makeup, you’ll notice that they are an illusion, faux, or fake, or whatever word you want to use that makes YOU comfortable.
I choose not to reveal my baldness. Some say, “oh, you have a perfectly shaped head, you should walk out there and do the damn thing”. The reality is it’s all about comfort levels and where each of us are psychologically.
How You Can Help
Let me enlighten you with a little lesson in sensitivity. Prior to you asking, “Is That Your Real Hair?” all loud and stuff, take a few moments to assess the situation. Think about whom you’re dealing with and what you know about the person. If you suspect that there are sensitivities behind that mask, wig, covering or whatever, be gentle. Offer a compliment. In my case, if you go on about how beautiful my hair is or brows are, then I just may lean over and tell you just what you want to know. “Psst, girrrrl, this is not mine, I bought it and these brows are the magic of permanent makeup because I’m not fortunate to have my own”.
What is that one question folks ask you that irritates the hell out of you? C’mon, you have one!
