11 Mildly Infuriating Struggles Only People Who Can Never Get Their Hair Right Understand

1. You are always THIS CLOSE to getting it to look right. But there is always a small but crucial area of your hair that won’t comply and messes the whole thing up.

2. You might not care about getting your hair right if it didn’t have so much potential. The three times in your adult life when your hair actually looked like you wanted it to left you with a deep impression. You remember otherwise mundane moments in your life only because your hair looked great then.

3. Somehow half the time your hair looks best just after you wake up? This naturally pits you against the showers that will destroy your awesome bedhead, which is a dilemma you’re always battling with. Go to work maybe smelling bad or go to work definitely having super sexy hair?

4. Washing it is a big deal. You are always trying to figure out if in this morning’s shower you will: (1) wash your hair with shampoo, in which case your hair will have no hope of looking like you want it to, (2) rinse it with water, in which case there is a 50/50 chance your hair will turn out acceptable, or (3) not let your hair get wet, in which case it will probably get wet and screw up your hair anyways.

5. Your entire reality is called into question when someone tells you your hair looks good but you don’t think so. When someone thinks your hair looks great and you have the feeling that they’re just straight-up wrong, it sot of freaks you out a little because you have this nagging feeling that it’s all been in your head this whole time?

6. Your cowlick is your best friend and your worst enemy. Some days it’s doing all the right things for your hair, but most days, it’s just causing chaos. You have had earnestly incredulous feelings about how science has not yet invented a way to get rid of the cowlick.

7. Significant others who try to touch your hair when you finally get it right drive you crazy. And they always seem to want to change it when it looks perfect — meaning that it might be all in your head? What is that?

8. You are constantly settling for hats. They’re your go-to solution for just not dealing with your hair, which is how you feel almost all the time.

9. Your hair goes through phases. There are weeks when there is no hope for your hair, punctuated by consecutive days where your hair is ON FIRE.

10. You have actually never understood your hair. To you it seems like most people “get” their hair. You actually have no idea what’s going on with it. The fact that you rely on whatever happens while you’re asleep to make your hair look the way you want it to is evidence of this.

11. You have never been able to tell a hairdresser what you want without sounding like an idiot. This is despite the fact that you’re in your 20s and you’ve gotten your hair cut hundreds of times. You still don’t know what to say to them. “Uhh… professional, but on the fringes of professional. I want to look stylish, just experiment! But, you know, clean-looking.”