“I’m 37. I’m not old.”

That line is from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which I first saw in high school. Now that I’m 37, I’m having trouble believing it, because my hair is turning gray. Again.

Thanks to genetics, another thing I first saw in high school was gray hair in the mirror. If there’s one thing more embarrassing for a sensitive high school kid than being obsessed with Monty Python, it’s listing Hair Color as “salt and pepper” on his first driver’s license.

I didn’t really do this, of course. I was dirty blonde, so a few strands of silver weren’t that noticeable and I just rode it out. When you’re young and immortal, your only real hair conundrum is this: Norm or Arthur. At least in the town where I grew up, where that was the choice of barbers.

I chose Arthur because he treated each scalp like a unique canvas, patiently crafting each masterpiece to the exact specifications of its discerning owner. False! Most barbers would just assume send the chair down a conveyor belt under a running clipper, tilting you forward at the end to eject your wallet as you’re launched out the door. I went there because my dad did and it cost $8. Period.[1]

I couldn’t complain. Not just because Arthur actually did a fair job, but also because discussing your hair with other men inevitably turns into a discussion of your sexuality. If you’ve spent any time in the waiting area of a barbershop, or in the boys’ locker room, you know that caring about your hair makes you gay. Caring about your appearance makes you gay. Caring makes you gay.

The sad irony about this inexcusable, ignorant, shallow (and yet time-honored) intolerance, however, is that the reason most guys secretly do care about their hair is that they want it to look good so that they can have sex with women!

Despite the butchering that often delays the process, most cow-licked, uneven-sideburned, razor-slip-bald-patched men who grew up visiting the barber eventually do get a woman. The first thing that woman wants is for him to change his hair.

When men settle down, we do a lot more of the things our wives want us to do: putting the toilet seat down, cutting back our sports viewing to less than six hours a day, waiting until after breakfast to get drunk, and of course, fixing our appearance.

You probably know a self-proclaimed Casanova exception that swears women don’t control him. This guy typically spews the homophobia described above, lives at the gym, and has a finely honed hwit-TSCHH! sound effect to indicate how whipped you are. False! Check his gym bag and you’ll find a three-year-old 24-pack of condoms he’s been hoping to get lucky enough to open, or if he’s married, maybe a subpoena from his wife’s divorce lawyer. Use caution, though – you’re more likely to find pants that are on fire.

In the appearance-changing department[2], my wife was no different. She wanted my hair styled a certain way. She wanted gel in it. She wanted it longer (don’t they all?). All of this meant more work for me, but as I grew older it was easier to see the logic, because as everyone who lives by stereotypes knows, gray hair is a sign of wisdom. It also makes you look “distinguished.” At that age, however, I still wanted to be distinguishable from Men in Nursing Homes.

Around this time, I got laid off, and the salt in my salt-and-pepper was starting to raise my blood pressure like a high-sodium diet. My wife finally suggested the unmentionable: visiting a stylist and dying my hair.

Or as the stylist[3] would soon tell me: it’s color, not dye. It’s product, not gel. It’s incredible, I’m having this conversation!

It was completely against my barbershop-assembly-line, I-don’t-give-a-fuck, testosterone upbringing. What would my macho friends say? Would I forget how to throw a football? Would my testicles pack their bags and move out? If worrying really causes gray hair, worrying about having gray hair put me into overdrive. I was vulnerable. I had been out of work for months and I had an important job interview the next day. The decision had become ‘do and/or dye, as appropriate.

I had seen the Just For Men commercials. The evidence was undeniable. Cops would think twice before giving someone as bold and confidently coiffed as me a ticket. Loan officers would be approaching me on the street to offer me mortgages. The harem following celebrity pitchmen Walt Clyde Frazier and Keith Hernandez would now be mine! I need simply apply, wait five minutes, rinse and I would be Human Spanish Fly![4]

It worked. The stylist shaped me up and chemically “youthanized” me. Young, go-getter Zam goed and getted the job…with zero speeding tickets on the way to the interview! And the harem? Somehow I had forgotten I was already married, but that was clearly my fault, not Just For Men’s. It didn’t matter. With my new job I’d almost be able to afford the additional hair color I was now going to have to buy every two weeks. I didn’t have anything to worry about now.

False! Now I was trapped. For the next five years I saw more women than Walt and Keith combined, but they were all hairdressers. I regularly combed the supermarkets for Medium Brown, which, judging by the center part in the otherwise-well-stocked shelves, seemed to be the only color they actually sold. When I could find it, I filled my basket higher than the Casanova in front of me buying the gross of Trojans.

I liked looking my age, but I cursed my new hair process every day for five years, and I never kept it a secret. More often than not, I announced it to people that couldn’t even tell, out of insecurity. While I was coloring on the outside, I was dying on the inside. How did I feel? False!

That’s why I stopped after my last birthday. Bring on the senior discount jokes. This time, as far as you know, I am absolutely over the hair issue without any insecurity. Unless you see me next week with brown hair, I am unequivocally past it. And I'm certain beyond a doubt (I think) that I will stop worrying about it.

After all, I’m 37. I’m not old. True?

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[1] Also, “Arthur” was a character in Holy Grail. Geek.