Why Psychology Made Me Shave Off My Eyebrows
An entertaining story of a fight against a non-existent enemy.
When I was a bit younger, I faced way more problems. I thought myself too skinny, which is why about once a month I would break loose and do several series of push-ups. I also thought that in order to be popular with girls all I had to do was simply to grow a beard. For this reason, I would stare at my thin hairs on the chin, urging them to grow with the power of thought.
The stupidest thing I did, though, was experimenting with my eyebrows.
It was back in September 2011. I enrolled at university, which I was extremely glad about. For the sake of my studies, I moved to another city and started renting a place with two strangers. They were also freshmen, studying at a different faculty.
Back then I was not the most sociable of people to talk to, preferring to stay away from others. Shutting myself off from the world was the easiest option that I took on my very first day at university. While others were getting acquainted with one another, I was sitting on a couch in the corridor a hundred feet away, casting glances upon my fellow students and pretending to be busy with something else. I faked being busy to the extent that I could not walk up to anyone and strike a conversation. In fact, I was too afraid to socialize with others, which is why I kept scrolling the menu on my smartphone, as if I had never seen it before.
It was at that time, while sitting in the very corridor, that I set out to look for a solution to the problem. Since I was too young, the solution I came up with was ham-fisted and preposterous — but it was one. The logic of a 17-year-old was the following: in order to get acquainted with people easily, one has to be attractive. To be (or at least to think oneself) attractive, one has to get rid of the defects of one’s appearance.
Thus, my eyebrows were the target.
Back at the time, they did not seem normal to me. Not like the ones other people had. They were too big, too wide or too bushy. I never had a problem finding a correct superlative to describe them. However, it did not have any impact on the result. After one or two lonely days at university, I came to realize that something had to be done.
It turned out I was afraid to talk to people not because of the mere fact that I was not self-assured, but because of my too wide eyebrows.
I identified my foes and I had to fight them. At 17, you have no time to think. That very evening, I took scissors and headed for the bathroom. I had to bring my eyebrows in line with the fictitious ideal, at once solving all my problems.
I cut off the “superfluous” hair at the upper part of my eyebrows, rendering them at least twice as narrow. I thought that my problems were solved and I got back to advanced math. On the following day, I went to university.
The following morning, I took a fresh look at myself. I was surprised. In the reflection, I did not see a human ready to blend into society and crack jokes. All I saw was a 17-year-old student with a full set of complexes who had also cut his eyebrows off. I looked silly and unnatural.
I was seized by panic. After half an hour I had to be off, but my appearance did not make me feel happy. Unfortunately, I was not able to grow hair on demand (I had always envied Harry Potter’s ability to do that), so I had to come to grips with the reality. I left my apartment and headed for the bus stop. I knew that the experiment on my appearance had been a mistake.
That day at university was horrible. Somehow I managed to find the right lecture hall, taking a seat at the desk right at the back of the hall. I was not even thinking of trying to make an acquaintance with anyone. Instead, I hoped nobody would notice me. However, people around did know my secret. I realized that at the subconscious level, catching fleeting glances of my fellow students. Those glances would focus on me for a bit longer than was necessary.
Damn it, the whole experiment was not worth it — the sentence kept crossing my mind.
Worse things were yet to come. At the end of the day, a lecturer split us into several smaller groups and assigned us to complete several tasks. However, after five minutes of group work, my fellow student shut her coursebook and asked me a terrible question.
Have you trimmed your eyebrows?
The other two students raised their heads and stared at my face. I couldn’t say a thing, putting on an awkward smile and instinctively covering my face with my hand. At that moment I wanted to vanish and land in my apartment where nobody would see me at least a month.
Explaining my behavior from a scientific perspective is easy. Research shows that highly embarrassable people — to whose number I belonged — are more motivated to avoid rejection from others. Despite the fact that back in the corridor I took a decision to avoid any contacts with other students, at the subconscious level I did want to be in the limelight, fearing the rejection of my fellow students.
That is why I had to make up a problem, find it, and even rectify it. With the start of lectures, I found myself hurled into an environment full of strange individuals possessing no knowledge or experience whatsoever in the realm of communication. That was the reason for my problem.
In the end, I benefited greatly from my little experiment. The feeling of embarrassment of my eyebrows secret being revealed by my fellow students was so strong that I immediately gave up on any further attempts to burnish my appearance. Having said that, I realized in the end that I felt more self-assured even with “not right” eyebrows than with the trimmed ones.
I no longer attempted to change myself with one exception of ear cartilage piercing. I focused on my inner reasons. After a few years, I almost reached the level I had been aiming for. Today I find it quite easy to have small talk with a stranger at a coffee shop or any other place. There are no longer feelings of embarrassment or awkwardness.
Who knows how I would be feeling now, had I not taken the scissors into my hands 8 years back.
