27. Characters with Extra Long Hair

You have no idea how petty this is, but I see it, and do you know what the complainer's reasoning is?  It's too hard to manage.

Here's me snorting at them because I used to have hair that was below my butt, and I'm sure one of my friends with even longer hair than that, and still has just as long hair, is snorting at them too.  Yes, it's harder to manage than short hair, but it's not as impossible as you all make it out to be.  Braiding and ponytails was my best friend, and as long as the hair was healthy, brushing wasn't all that hard either (because my hair is only slightly wavy at the bottom in comparison if I had super-springy curly hair).  Also, just because there wasn't any sophisticated hair care products that could make hair easier to manage in the olden days of the Middle Ages, didn't mean women didn't enjoy having long hair, not that they could cut their hair short back then anyway.  The medieval days were a weird time for women's hair; they had to be long (some down to their knees or longer), and yet the as little of it as possible could be seen because it was temptation, so the hair was braided, plaited and covered up.  

This whole "harder to manage" schtick is also applied to when the characters are superheroes who have to fight villains whom may take advantage of the long hair and grab it.  Whatever.  Like capes don't get in the way or aren't yanked on by the antagonist?  Besides, there are different kinds of hairstyles that will stay up even through all that rigorous fighting even if the hair is super thick.  Some of those hairstyles don't even take more than two minutes to set up.  Some are as simple as braid, wrap, and pin.

The other complaint, you might ask?

"The characters having super long hair are just trying to be unique!"

Now you're just being nit-picky except there's nothing to pick at.  Who cares if the character has hair down to their ankles?  I dare you to look up the world record of someone having the longest hair, dreadlocks included because apparently that's a separate category.  If I ever just decided to grow my hair out, it would probably be because I get tired of paying thirty dollars to cut it into a layered bob with arched bangs.  So aside from trimming my hair of the occasional split ends, growing it out isn't as big a deal as paying thirty dollars every one or two months.  

And who says that having super long hair gets attention and is unique?  The most attention my friend's hair gets is people saying that it must be a lot of work, in which she replies, "Yeah, it is, but my mom won't let me cut it."  The person says, "Yikes," and the conversation moves on and the hair isn't brought up again unless she needs someone to braid it or something.  My hair isn't as long, only down to my lower back, and the only attention I got from it was when I let my hair down once at work at the end of my shift and no one had seen my hair out of the tight bun before.  It wasn't that my hair was long, it was simply because it was a change from what they normally saw every day; although none of them expected it to be that long either.  It was also a little embarrassing on my part because most of my co-workers are middle-aged men, so it goes without saying that I never let my hair down in front of them again.  The only other reason is if there's an outside family member or family friend visiting and my mom is braiding my hair, in which this person remarks how thick my braided hair is.  That's really it.  Once that bit is over, it's over.  It's not like an hour is spent just talking on how pretty and thick my hair is.

Having long or short hair isn't unique.  Having a tall mohawk is definitely unique—another world record to look up—but I wouldn't ban that from the world of fiction writing just because it's different.