Random Thoughts.....What Are You Thinking?

I've been going to the same cosmetologist for my hair for about two and a half years. Every two months I go in, he trims up my ends and layers, gives me some highlights if I'm feeling it, waxes my mustache off if I ask him to. We schedule my next appointment while I'm there so it's a continuous thing, because in the past I've gone months and months forgetting to get my hair trimmed until it looks like a horse's tail that hasn't seen a hair brush since the summer of '76.

ANYWAYS. I'm always pleased with the guy's work, so I haven't considered going somewhere else. (until...)

All good, right?

The problem is that during and since the 2016 US presidential election, he wants to talk politics. And we disagree vastly on politics. I don't bring it up, ever, but sometimes things I say set him off. For example, in my time-before-last visit, I mentioned that my husband had recently been in Vegas for a business trip. Innocent small talk, right? And he asked where he stayed, and I said right on the strip, in fact, he could see Trump Tower or whatever Trump thing is there from his hotel. I was mentioning it as a landmark, but it set him off on how Trump should be president because he has ... buildings? I just smiled without agreeing or disagreeing because I'm hella not disagreeing with someone who is holding a pair of sharp scissors next to my face, if you get what I mean. (I supported Hillary Clinton.)

Last time I was in there, it came up that the kids' room at the library is the last thing that new hires learn because it's the hardest area for two reasons. One, it basically has every section from the rest of the library condensed into one room. And two, you need to be prepared to see a lot of sadness there, because several homeless families live in there during open hours. I am glad that there's a place where these families who are down on their luck can be during the day so their children aren't out on the street. I worry about them when they're not there. But when it came up, my hair guy went off about how the police should go in and kick them out, they are only homeless because they are lazy or drug addicts, etc.

And again, I can't agree because it's against everything I am to do so, but I can't disagree because this guy is literally holding a weapon next to my head.

We disagree on a number of other things as well. He has quoted some negative stereotypes about black people. I support Black Lives Matter. He is strongly pro-life. I will literally die if I get pregnant and don't have access to an abortion (I have no uterine lining -- the egg would implant somewhere else, likely a fallopian tube, becoming an ectopic pregnancy. I'd die. And without me there to host it, the fetus would die anyways. And I have had my tubes tied for my safety, but it's not 100%. Tubes can reform or grow back.) But even before my death-by-pregnancy was a thing, I was pro-choice.

So, as you may imagine, it's a bit uncomfortable for me to go get my hair did. I don't want to talk about any of this stuff with my cosmetologist, especially when we don't agree on any of it.

So now I have a conundrum. I'm uncomfortable going to my hair guy. Easy, get a new hair guy. Right? But it's over politics, and that's not very tolerant of me to NOT tolerate his politics. Right? Plus before I knew his political stance, he was upset because he felt he couldn't post anything political to his Facebook because it could hurt his business, and I told him that his politics don't affect his ability to cut hair. It would make me the worst kind of hypocrite if I now ditched him over his politics, after I told him that. Right? (Even though I kinda meant he should be able to post his feelings to his personal Facebook, NOT that he could use his chair as a conservative preaching device. Uh?)

So what do I do? I can't stay with him. I'm uncomfortable every time it comes up (which is every single visit, whether I want it to or not.) But I can't leave him, not if I expect to be a tolerant, non-hypocritical, non-***. I can't ask him not to talk about it, not after I told him it doesn't affect his hair-cutting abilities. I can try to change the subject, and I do. But I know it will just come up again. And even if he never said a word about it again, I doubt I'd ever be comfortable with him again. I feel like I'm personally supporting everything I stand against every time I visit him. And yes, he does know that I'm on the opposite side of the spectrum. He follows me on both Facebook and Pinterest, where I haven't been shy about voicing my opinions in the past.

I have started dreading getting my hair done over it, but I just don't feel like it's a legitimate excuse to leave him.

What do? Cosmetologists, what do you think from the other side of the chair? Would you want a client who was uncomfortable with you in any capacity? If a client did leave you, what reasons would be acceptable reasons to you? Other peeps, have you ever had to break up with a cosmetologist? How did you do it? Why did you do it? And does my even considering it make me a terrible, intolerant person?