No woman in all of human history has ever looked better with short hair than she would with a head full of healthy locks. Despite this irrefutable fact, American women are “chopping it off” in greater numbers every day. This rears its ugly head in an array of ugly permutations, from the boy-like pixie cut to bizarre semi-shaved head topographies. The rationalizations—whether it’s donating their hair to sick kids or the summer weather—are immaterial. The effect, and true reasons, are the same.

I blame this lamentable trend on a few factors. The most powerful are the disingenuous lies—from both men and women—about how it looks. Women are quick to encourage other women to cut their hair by telling them how “cute” it is. While I’m no scientist, I’m convinced this is some deep, genetic programming at work, one that forces women—who compete with one another on a physical level on a daily basis—to encourage any behavior that might eliminate competitors in the dating pool. Men are no better. The cowardly and deluded among us perpetuate the myth that “some girls can pull it off.” Pulling something off, I often respond, is the equivalent of “passing” a class. Just because you have enough left-over attractiveness to remain bangable after cutting off your hair doesn’t mean you wouldn’t look better with it back on.

I once spoke to two girls outside of a restaurant. One had a short, boy-like haircut, while her friend had long, healthy black hair. The short-haired girl spoke in an obvious Latin American accent, while the long-haired friend spoke in a clearly American accent, though she sported facial features of someone from Indian-subcontinent extraction. Before long, our conversation steered to personal matters and, bored with our pedestrian topics, I floated a provocative question. “Why did you cut your hair short?” The Indian girl jumped down my throat before the Latin girl had a chance to respond, though once I settled her down, I managed to get my answer.

Latin Girl: I used to have long hair, but I just broke up with a boyfriend. Me: I’m sure it looked better before. Indian-American Girl: That’s sexist and stupid! It looks cute! Latin Girl [ignoring her remark]: Wanna see a picture? [shows me her passport] Me: God, it looks way better. You look like a different person, and way younger. Indian-American Girl: She looks just as good, dude. Who are you? Me [to Latin girl]: Let me ask you something: are guys hitting on you less now with the short hair? Latin Girl: Oof. Absolutely. A lot less. Me: If you had to put a number on it, what would you say the reduction is? Latin Girl: At least 90 percent less. That’s partly why I did it. I wanted to be alone for a while after my break up. Me [to Indian-American girl]: See what happens when theory meets reality?

Another factor is the effect of Hollywood and the celebrity culture on women’s behavior. It’s already well-documented that women have a much-stronger copycat instinct than men. While men—to paraphrase an astute manosphere commentator—seek to stand out from the crowd, women’s aim to stand out in the crowd. Just like women don’t go to the bathroom alone, they don’t go into a style alone. The plaudits a Miley Cyrus, Rihanna, or Anne Hathaway receive when they cut their hair off—from people who have no business commenting on the attractiveness of women, like gay men—creates a copycat cycle that increases the trend geometrically. Further evidence of this female impulse is on display when you see the same effect at work in a positive ways.

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Whenever I’m in Argentina, I’m always struck by the rows of girls walking down the street with long flowing hair reaching down near their asses. Hair to the middle of the back is considered “short” there. As an experiment, I remember asking one girl with especially long hair if she’d ever consider cutting it. She answered that she’d “rather die,” and regaled me with a story of her “unfortunate friend” who’d gone into a salon for a clean-up. Instead of the “two centimeters” she’d instructed him to remove, the stylist had cut off double. “Every morning she looks in the mirror and breaks down in tears. This has been going on for 10 days straight.”

The truth of the matter is that long hair’s almost universally attractive to men, when they’re actually speaking honestly (without trying to appease women in the room). Furthermore, it’s a symbol of youth, femininity, and health. Why can’t old women grow long hair? Because it’s an ephemeral trait of your fertile years. Women instinctively know this, which is why every American girl who cuts, and keeps, her hair short often does it for ulterior reasons. Short hair is a political statement. And, invariably, a girl who has gone through with a short cut—and is pleased with the changes in her reception—is damaged in some significant way. Short hair is a near-guarantee that a girl will be more abrasive, more masculine, and more deranged.

I’d developed that belief on years of platonic interactions alone. The bitchiest work colleagues, the most difficult cashier, the most confrontational, aggressive cunts in bars have all shared one trait—short-ass hair. But it wasn’t until I decided to make exceptions to my no-dating-short-haired-girls rule that I proved this beyond any doubt. The first pixie-cut girl I went out with—who was otherwise attractive—harbored twisted rape fantasies that actually concerned me that I was being entrapped. She cavalierly talked about filthy sex, throwing around the word “pussy” and “cock” even when our clothes were on. When—during a rather vanilla conversation about men and women—I made some tame remarks about what men find attractive in women, she broke down into inconsolable bawling and, literally, ran out of the bar we were in. It made about as much sense as crying if I’d just told you tomorrow was Saturday.

Another short-haired girl once came over to my house, texted with one hand, while she jerked me off with the other. The person on the other side of the iPhone, I quickly learned, was her until-then secret “boyfriend.” Still another girl, who had long hair while we were hanging out—but has since sheared it into an unflattering soccer-mom configuration—lived with a (legitimate) prostitute, was emotionless during sex unless I was super-aggressive, and used racial slurs to refer to people as if that was the formal term for them. On the outside, she was a college student, from a well-to-do family, who worked with children part-time.

Not only is short-hair unattractive, it’s one of the biggest signals a man can get that a woman is damaged beyond repair. There’s no such thing as “pulling it off.”

Read More: 8 Signs You Should Break Up With A Girl

