I have great hair, or a “great head of hair,” as my maternal grandmother likes to say. I don’t take after the men in my father’s family, where receding hairlines start in the men’s early 20s and wreak follicle havoc on through death; nor do I have hair like the men on my maternal grandfather’s side of the family, where there was never much hair to do much with. But, like a lot of men (especially in the DC area) I suffered from a hair-related illness: I didn’t know how to ask for a good haircut, and too often I settled for bad ones as a result of trusting stylists to discern, perhaps via divination, exactly what I wanted them to do with their shears.

Some of us are especially bad about this. We treat haircuts like a chore, no more aesthetically significant than mowing the yard or picking out new drapes. “Take a little off the top,” we say. “Trim the sides,” we grumble. Or worse, we don’t ask for anything: “I don’t know, just do something with this,” we say as we wave a hand over our heads, as if swatting at swarming bees.

I used to be like that, and I suffered through years of weird and thoughtless haircuts as a result. Bowl cuts. Buzz cuts. Flat tops. Ambiguous messes. The caesar cut (before and after it was cool–not while Justin Timberlake had it). And then one day, I learned to talk about my hair. On an impulse, I asked my stylist how I could make my hair less dry and poofy.

“Do you use dandruff shampoo?” she asked.

My god, I thought. They really are telepathic!

“Yes, yes I do!”

“Well stop,” she said. “Use dandruff shampoo every other day, and then use something a little kinder to your hair on the other days. And condition every time, whether you use regular shampoo or anti-dandruff. And skip a day here and there so that your hair benefits from the scalp’s natural oils.”

And thus an appreciation for my hair was born. My stylist taught me other things, too. About layering (for that brief time when I wanted longish hair); which styles should be rounded in the back and which styles should be squared; why one should always get one’s sideburns trimmed; how to defeat my cowlick; which hair products to use and how to apply them.

So here’s my advice for DC men with hair and hair issues (sorry premature baldies, no list of advice will ease your pain):

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My hair has gotten to that point, folks. It’s time for a haircut.

I don’t know if this happens to anyone else, but there’s a point—an actual length—in the afterlife of my hair follicles when all hell breaks loose. In January 2007, I was so sick of it (and it was long enough, after the split ends) to donate the majority of my locks to Locks of Love. Yes, I did revert to looking like my sixth-grade self, but it was worth it just to get rid of the horrible tangles that kept me in the shower for 30-45 minutes shampooing, conditioning, pulling strands apart, and repeating.

I’m not willing to get a cut as drastic as before (I’ve realized that chin-length bobs make me look a little chunky above the neck). I just need to take a couple inches off.

Which brings me to my main problem: decision-making. Sometimes (and when it really counts), I’m able to go confidently in the direction of my dreams…ahem. But for everyday decisions, like, say, where to eat for lunch in a new area or a new place to get my hair cut, it takes me awhile.

I asked colleagues the other day and scoured Yelp! looking for a quality salon with moderate prices and near Adams Morgan. I did a new search online this morning (with, of course, the same results and reviews) and chose a couple of places to call. I thought today would be the day. Thursdays can be relatively slower in terms of content, so I figured I could leave for a long lunch, get my hair cut, and come back beautiful and ready for a date tonight. And then I came to work and promptly forgot about it until I ran my fingers through my hair.

I was thinking Trim (close but expensive), Blondie’s (a bit of a walk but moderate), Urban Escape (I could just tumble down the hill to get there), or Bang (more of a trek but moderate prices, I think). Any (helpful) suggestions?