I was in my mid-twenties — working at a magazine whose staff consisted of 42 women and three men — when a coworker introduced me to a phenomenon she called “the crisis haircut.”
She nodded over at an associate editor who up till then was known for a voluminous, messy updo but now had a hipster-ish mullet with bangs.
“I guarantee she just got out of a relationship,” the coworker said, and went on to explain how, in almost all cases, dramatic haircuts signaled dramatic life changes.
I had trouble believing this, largely because I don’t like broad, reductive theories and also because I couldn’t fathom someone saying to themselves, “I’m going to turn my life around, and it’s going to start with bangs.”
Later that day, however, my coworker sent me an email with no message–simply a subject line that read, “Confirmed!”