On haircuts and human nature

Bruce's Theorem of Haircuts: If, after getting a haircut, you receive compliments from people who didn't know you were going to the barber/hairstylist, you waited too long to get your hair cut. This is not to say that the people giving you compliments are anything other than genuine. It simply means that a good haircut should not be a dramatic improvement over your old haircut. I'm speaking mostly of basic haircuts here -- special cuts like high-and-tight or a perm are exceptions, because they can't be anything but dramatic. Corollary 1: The closer attention you pay to your hair, the more often you'll tend to get it cut. This is almost axiomatic. In fact, you can make any number of rules of the form "The closer attention you pay to your [blank], the more often you'll tend to [maintain it]." For now, let's just use this specific form. Corollary 2: The more diligent you are about keeping your hair trimmed, the less compliments you will tend to receive. Grant me the luxury of mixing in some conventional wisdom: Everybody Knows That: Most women tend to be more concerned with their appearance than most men. This can be tempered somewhat by marriage, as each spouse starts to rub off on the other. I could include references to research studies about pre- and post-courtship behavior, role-playing behaviors as children, gender identity and so on, but none of you would read it anyway, so let's just total it up thusly: Conclusion 1: Most married women get less compliments from their husbands about their hair than they'd like. Conclusion 2: Most married men live in constant fear of not noticing their wife's next haircut. Eight years of marriage (in a couple of months), and this is what I've learned.