That’s No Way to Live Your Life: My Family’s Gay Hairdresser

In this nonfiction essay, the author—a gay man who grew up in Tallahassee, Florida, in the early 1990s— reflects on a paradox: He grew up feeling closeted and utterly alone even though the man who styled his family’s hair for years was openly gay. In middle age, the writer contacted his former hairdresser and interviewed him. What emerges is an article that reflects on the very different experiences of two gay men who both graduated from Tallahassee’s Leon High School (one in 1967, the other in 1995) as well as an exploration of why the writer did not allow the hairdresser to become a queer mentor to him at a time when he needed such a mentor desperately. Topics covered include masculinity, social class, gay nightlife, gay relationships, and the effects of homophobia.