Everyone has different tastes, but this comment just seems very unkind. I don't have hair to my rear, but a friend of mine does and now I am hesitant to recommend 3FC to her. Everyone here has dealt with unfair, appearance-based judgments from other people. I would hope that the members here would try to be more sensitive.

I don't personally agree with Wannabeskinny, but I appreciate that she spoke her mind. Everyone is just sharing their opinion. Unless she directed that comment to a particular person I don't think there is any reason to get offended.

I'm not a big fan of censorship. I like that I can speak my mind here which means that I have to be tolerant of others' opinions. As long as no one is getting attacked, I don't see a problem.

My opinion is not directed at you personally. It is my opinion that long hair does not automatically make someone attractive. It does not look good on everyone, and more often the not it's not the best cut for many many people, especially when it gets below chest level. Everyone is entitled to their own personal taste however. I respect everyone who chooses to wear their hair long, I just don't really like the look. Some people are awed by long hair... just not me. It is also in my experience that women grow their hair really really long for attention. Like they expect people to be like "oh wow, oh my god, your hair is so long!" I genuinely don't like it (it's not a mean spirited thing, I just don't like it) and all I can think is "eww please don't touch me with it" lol.

3FC is a great place to connect with people of all attitudes and opinions. We discuss many topics here, most pertaining to weight loss. I find much needed support in regard to my health and fitness and the ladies and gents here are very welcoming. But we all have opinions, you can't expect that to change.

To clarify, I never meant to imply that you should have not stated your preference for shorter hair. I also did not mean that it was wrong to state that you found super long hair to be unattractive. Everyone has preferences.

What I found to be unkind was the imputation of psychological conditions to physical appearance. Many of the people here have repeatedly complained about the fact that others will place emotional judgments on them (such as lazy, incompetent, gluttonous, etc.) because they are overweight. Everyone I have seen discussing it here believed that this was unfair and unjustified. Whether, it is weight, hair, whatever, I wanted to point out that this could be hurtful.

As far as censorship goes, I would never ask that someone not be able to speak freely. I would never ask that a post be edited or removed. However, I feel that I am simply using my own freedom to speak when I say that I felt the comment to be unfair.

It really depends on how you take care of it and style it. I had long bleached nasty hair at 18, yet I got away with it because of my age. It looked horrific. My mom now has the same length of hair (she is 50), it is (natural) blonde and she waves/styles it/conditions it every day, and boy would I kill to have hair like that.

I used to hair that went two or three inches below my shoulder blades and I loved it. I have very thick, healthy very dark brown hair. But my friend talked me into cutting it short (not too short, just barely grazing my shoulders) and I just don't like it. People have mistaken me to be older than I really am (I'm only 25 and women in their mid-thirties with kids have come up to me and addressed me in such a way to imply that I'm older than them) since then.

It's really whatever length looks good on you. Short, I've found, just doesn't look good on me.

The funny thing is, short is actually more high maintenance on me than the long was. With the long hair, I could just let it air dry, use some serum, leave it alone and have nicely tamed waves. Now with all the weight of my hair gone, if I stick with the same styling regimen, my hair tends to get poofy and a bit frizzy. So I have to straighten it no matter what. I have to spend more time on my short hair (30 to 40 minutes a day) than I did styling my long hair (10 to 15 minutes a day).

*Sigh* Hoping my hair grows back fast... serves me right for giving in to impulse.

I'm 57 and my hair is down to my waist.....and has been that way since I was a child. It's very thick and I never wear it down....and the main fear I've always had about cutting it has been that it would not be as easy to manage. Washing it is a bit of a job but it's so easy to day-to-day. It's curly and would take lots of time to style if it was shorter.

I have no idea if it looks good on me or not. I get lots of compliments...but on the HAIR, not me.
Plus.........I've only been to a salon twice in my whole life.

deena

I don't think any age is "too old" for long hair,..

Sheesh why do people with long hair take it so hard and personally when someone doesn't like long hair?

Let me say no way is 38 too old! There are lots of flattering longer styles

As a 39 year old whos hair ranges between long and really long ~ again no way!

I don't think their should be an age limit on hair length, style, updos or wearing it down, and agree with another poster that these beliefs are old fashioned.

I've had short hair before. It would never lay right and I had to style it, and because of the products I had to wash it every day. It was too short to put it up, so it was always hanging in my face and made my acne worse. Then there were the frequent trips to the salon, trying to keep it short. When my hair is around bra strap length or longer is when it will look good just by combing it. Also, it stays behind my shoulders and out of my face, and I could put it up for physical activities. Trying to fight nature is too hard for me and I'm a very low maintenance type of girl, and unless that changes as I get older, then I'm a long hair for life. To **** with what everyone else thinks!

Btw, I'm going to have to disagree with some of the post here and say that long hair actually looks better the more you leave it alone. All that styling is damaging, and for long hair, usually unnecessary. In my opinion healthy hair looks the best, no matter the length.

But this is all completely irrelevant to the OP. Getting extensions is very different than having natural hair, and in this case probably is higher maintenance. But people have various hair styles for a variety of reasons and low maintenance isn't the only reason to have long hair. Just wanting it is reason enough. OP, if you want to experience long hair then go for it. I think most people look good with long hair, and you're probably no different, no matter your age. In fact, I prefer long hair on older people (but I don't think 30's is old!) rather than the ever popular poodle perm. Well, unless that poodle perm is blue, purple or pink. Which I have seen on three older (60's +) ladies before and they looked totally awesome!

Paradoxx already addressed this issue, so you should know by now it's not your preference that is possibly hurtful, but the fact that you judge some ones personality/mental condition on their hair. It's just hair and shouldn't be an indication of who someone is as a person, rather just a preference. Just like you prefer your hair short, there are others that prefer theirs long.

Lets flip your logic around. I have come across quite a few short haired people who want to keep their hair short and would never even entertain the thought of letting it grow. Are they desperate and insecure? They must be since long haired girls who want to keep their hair the way it is are insecure, right? Wrong!

I know some one who is going through financial issues and hasn't been able to get a trim in a long while and her hair has gotten longer than she likes. She says she's not feeling like herself and doesn't like the way she looks because of her hair and she's going to learn how to cut her own hair because she can't stand it anymore. So yes, she has a preference for her own hair length and is upset that it's getting longer. But is she insecure? I don't think so.

There are people who don't want a hair cut, just like there are others who don't want their hair to grow. It's just their preference and I don't think it's right to make negative assumptions just because someones preference is different than yours. Someone isn't desperate just because their body is doing what it naturally does.

It not too old at all! My mom had cut her hair really short almost the same as my dads! And it was because my grandmother kept telling her to cut it because she was too old for long hair and it would look better short. And she was only in her late 30s! Well the past year or so she has been letting it grow and its now a little past her shoulders and I showed her how to scrunch it to make curls which doesnt take very long and it looks great. She even got herself a flat iron and I really think the longer hair makes her look much much younger!

Long hair depends on the face shape & style.

I tried to wear my hair long for years in high school, even though it was unflattering. Long, center-parted hair with wings a la Farrah Fawcett was the style. Either that, or you had it cut like Dorothy Hamill. There seemed to be no other options. I was no ice skater. The feathered wings always drooped on me. I was not good with a blowdryer. I had oily hair. So I ended up looking like a woman who belonged to a strict cult that forbade makeup & any adornment other than a long braid. It wasn't until college that I discovered the Vidal Sasson bob & mascara & then pretty much never went back.

The people I've heard complain about long hair on older women, for what it's worth:

1) The older women in my family who were rather conservative & appalled by "hippies." Here you had these ladies who modeled themselves after Jackie Kennedy & always had their hair "done" & sprayed stiff as cotton candy at the State Fair. They wore little suits. Now this all seems cute & very "Mad Men," but at the time, it seemed oppressively repressed & ladylike to me. This was not Cher, or Joni, Joan and Judy, or the rock groupies. Anyway, the women in my family were adamant that That Kind of Thing had to stop by the time you hit 30. Then, if you were not going to descend to the level of trash, you had to start regularly visiting Beauty Parlors. Various hair products would have to be used. "Natural" was not yet something terribly admired.

2) A young man who once complained to me over his beer that he'd see a female from behind with waist-length hair & start admiring her, ah, assets, and then she'd turn around & he'd finally see her face... and she WOULD NOT BE AS YOUNG AS HE'D THOUGHT INITIALLY. This angered him. What was she trying to pull on him? He took it rather personally, to say the least. In general, he had rather high expectations regarding women's looks -- much higher than they ought to have been, considering his own, IMHO -- and I am not friends with him anymore due to some tactless things he said later during the course of our brief friendship.

I love your post, saef! I rememer the years when every young girl had either a Farrah Fawcett or a Dorothy Hamill. In the late 1970's, it seemed those were the only two hairstyles that existed.

This topic came up at another site a few years ago, a dating forum I posted at when I was still dating. A young man pointed out that the reason he objected to long hair on older women is exactly what you said: He'd start thinking how beautiful it was, watch it swinging as she walked, "and then she'll turn around and I'll be like, aaah! You're old!" He actually thought having long hair was deceptive of them! (Of course, several older, long-haired ladies gathered up a nice collection of rotten eggs to throw at him.)

People still say sometimes that long hair ages a woman. "It pulls down her face," is the most common statement I've come across. Therefore when a woman reaches a certain age, she should cut it. But then these people also accuse long-haired older ladies of "trying to hang on to their youth." I don't get the logic, here. I've reached a certain age where I shouldn't have long hair, because that means I'm trying to look younger than I am. So I'm going to get the standard old-lady teased, permed, helmet head, and advertise to the world that I've reached that age?

In case anyone hasn't guessed, I'm in the long hair camp. Mine is down to my butt, and it will remain that way as long as I can still lift a hair brush. (When I can't, my daughters assure me, they'll help.)