I never understood why I disliked getting haircuts so much until I was diagnosed with autism. Now I understand that it’s a sensory issue. I don’t usually like being touched, especially by strangers. The salon is always full of smells and noises and bright lights, the collar of my shirt is itchy for the remainder of the day, and I’m functionally blind the entire time because I have to take my glasses off, so I can’t even see what’s happening to me.

For me, haircuts were sort of like doctor’s visits — vaguely unpleasant, not something to savor or look forward to, but something you had to do every so often for health and wellness. (By the way, in case anyone who has ever cut my hair is reading this, I promise it’s not you, it’s me, you did great.) A grit-your-teeth necessity.

But haircuts are usually a lot less important medically than booster shots and pap smears, which explains why, as soon as I was an adult under my own supervision, I stopped getting them except for like once every six years on average. Occasionally I would trim the split ends myself with kitchen scissors.

Last weekend, I cut off 18 inches of hair. Enough that when the stylist picked it up off the floor and balled it up, they said, “Huh. I bet this is about the size of your baby right now.” And indeed it was. (A large cabbage, according to the food-comparison apps.)

The reason I chose to do it was the reason I make pretty much every other sartorial decision that I do: practicality. My hair went all the way down my back, which admittedly isn’t that far given that I’m 5 foot 3, but it was long enough that even in a ponytail it had a tendency to flop into things. Usually my morning coffee.

With an infant on the way, I had terrible visions of it flopping into unmentionable gross baby secretions. Plus every mother I know, including my own, has warned me about the surprising grip strength those tiny baby fists have. (Apparently, baby Victoria was just as obsessed with long hair back then, too.)

I was lucky growing up that my parents let us choose our own hairstyles for ourselves. My mom only had one rule, which is that we couldn’t dye our hair. She said it was because of the chemicals but I think in retrospect it was probably because she didn’t want her bathroom sink stained purple or green or whatever neon color I’d have picked.

My hair has always been just for me, not for other people. Over the years, many people have gently suggested to me things I could do to make my hair look nicer (style it, cut it, wear it up or down or sideways … long hair means a long list). What I wish I could have explained at the time — and I didn’t really have the proper words for it — was that I chose those somewhat less flattering styles on purpose. I mean my God, I spent five years looking like a labradoodle in high school and college. I’m not blind (when my glasses are on), I know what I looked like. It was deliberate.

When you’re raised in our society as a woman, society often tells you that your body isn’t really yours, right? That your body and your looks are for the consumption of others. From churches where young women are encouraged to “stay pure” and abstain from premarital sex for the sake of their future husband — not for their own development and mental well-being — to women wearing uncomfortable high heels because it makes them look taller and slimmer in the eyes of other viewers, not because they are good to walk in.

I’m all for supporting women making those decisions of their own free will — your body your choice, girl! — but I think if we’re being honest, most of us ladies have put ourselves through something mentally and physically uncomfortable to make ourselves look nicer for the sake of other people, and their consumption and judgment.

I don’t know if it’s the autism, or the feminism, or just the Victoriaism, but I have a low bar of discomfort I’m willing to put up with for the sake of other people’s viewing pleasure. I know wearing my hair long in a ponytail with a Jojo Siwa-branded hair bow plopped on top wasn’t the most flattering choice. But it made me feel comfortable and happy, so I did it.

Almost every woman has a relationship with her hair that could match a romance novel bar-for-bar in drama. My relationship with my hair is cyclical. It grows out long and unbothered for years, and then I cut it short due to some sort of life event.

Grew it long in childhood, got it cut very short in sixth grade because I’d developed the habit of yanking out strands and gave myself some bald spots. (In retrospect, this was stimming.) Then growth for five years. Then a pixie cut when I came out as queer, to mark the occasion. (I had a whole overwrought metaphor at the time comparing my long hair, which everyone thought was so pretty but was actually uncomfortable for me, to the boyfriend I had. Thank God I didn’t have a column then).

Then after a few years of regular haircut upkeep, I began to let it grow again, until November 2019, when I cut it to donate. Almost six years later, I whack it off to prepare for the birth of my son. I wonder how long it will get again before some new life event triggers a chop.