My hair has grown a lot recently. Many have noticed and commented. But it was only this past week that I realized that my hair is significantly longer than it has ever been. This isn’t because I’m careless. It’s because I’ve stopped caring.

Last January I went to get my haircut at the same place I’d been going to since it opened up near my house. It is close, and the hairdressers who worked there seemed nice enough. But that one fateful day in January ruined about seven years’ worth of nice thoughts.

The conversation as I was getting my haircut involved the two hairdressers and a young man about to embark on his two-year mission. I’m not Mormon, so it was interesting to listen in as they discussed the differences between non Mormons and Mormons, and the difference between public schools and private schools.

But then one of the hairdressers said something that put a bad taste in my mouth. “Graduates of Judge [Memorial] have no [sense] of the real world outside of high school and have no good careers ahead of them.”

Excuse me? I really don’t know what that meant, but I sure didn’t like hearing it. Though she didn’t know it, she had personally attacked my life since May 28, 1999. And she didn’t even know my name, and I don’t have a sense of the real world? What? I would have been OK if the conversation had stopped there, but the private school bashing continued until the end of my haircut.

I’m a graduate of Judge, and I already have a better “sense of the world” than the two hairdressers in that store because I know the difference between what should be discussed in public places and what should be discussed behind closed doors.

Amadou Niang could be considered a saint in my book. At least he had a point to his comments. There was no point to this discussion except to maybe get a larger tip from the missionary. After all, he was the one who started the conversation in the first place.

I filed a complaint and received a coupon for 50 percent off my next haircut and a poorly written note which said, “We are under new owner and management and trying to make this a great salon.”

That’s the sign of a great hair salon. Blame the new management for two rude and offensive hairdressers. And, by the way, I’m glad they’re trying to have a better salon.

If my 12 bucks a month was of any value to them, they would have given me a free haircut. Whatever the case, they’ve lost my business. I’d rather give the money to a homeless man on Main Street and keep my hair long.

When I was in Colorado, my roommates and I invested about 30 bucks in purchasing hair clippers. It ended up saving us (and a bunch of our friends) about $120 each throughout the year. Either they cut my hair or I cut it myself.

But I’m not in Colorado anymore, and, to be perfectly honest, I don’t really care all that much about how I look anymore.

Sure I’d like to present myself in a positive light, but anyone who sat next to me last semester during my early morning classes knows how bad I smell when I don’t shower.

I didn’t exactly try to hide it. If I showered that morning, my hair would look nice, I’d look a little more alive, and I’d smell nice. If I hadn’t showered, I’d have a hat on, I’d sleep through class and I’d reek of deodorant.

There was once a time I cared, though. I cared a lot. How else was I supposed to be popular in high school than to look popular?

I remember a specific phone call about four years ago. My friend called me to tell me something really important. It couldn’t wait. She explained to me that she was flipping through the channels that evening and had to flip back because she swore she saw me on television.

Come to find out, she told me, it was Tom Cruise being interviewed on Entertainment Tonight.

He resembled me?

I never noticed the similarity. The thought had never occurred to me. Tom Cruise. Really?

This was not the only occurrence, though. I’ve been told by many people that I have this very familiar look.

Of these many people, mind you, no two have ever met. They are several completely different perspectives, all looking down the same road.

There you go, folks. I think there is enough evidence to prove that I look like Tom Cruise.

I never tried to look like Tom Cruise. I never studied his hair patterns, and I didn’t have any plastic surgery. And it doesn’t matter how much of a sleezeball Tom Cruise is made out to be in the media. If someone tells me I resemble one of Hollywood’s most successful, handsome actors, I’m going to take that as a compliment.

I mean, I don’t think that these four people would have made the comment of my looking like Tom Cruise if they didn’t intend to compliment my looks. None of them said it as if it were a bad thing. However, no one has ever told me this during one of my early morning classes when I had a hat on. I admit, I watched “Mission: Impossible” a few years ago for the sole purpose of finding the resemblance, and I found it. His hair and my hair were practically twins. But I’m proud to say that now, I don’t care.

I haven’t really gotten a haircut in the past four months due to my past experience. And I’ve grown a goatee in the same time span (which my girlfriend has tried shaving off numerous times), Tom and I have grown apart. And as much as I loved being compared to a famous actor, I feel ready to move on.

I wish those hairdressers had known whose hair they were cutting. I mean, it’s not like everyday a Tom Cruise look-a like comes waltzing into the local hair salon, is it?

Chris welcomes feedback at [email protected]. Tell him if you think he looks like Tom Cruise.