I bullied a barber into cutting my fringe. It was a terrible mistake | Zoe Williams

On a day as hot as hell last week, the only thing I had left to take off without causing offence was my fringe. So I went into a barber and asked him to do me this simple favour, and he said, “Not really – barbers are for men,” and I said that was a risk I was prepared to take, and he said, “Men’s hair and women’s hair are completely different,” and I said, “That cannot be true – it doesn’t make biological sense,” and he said, “It is true,” and I said it was the least true thing I had ever heard and he said, “Fine,” and it took about a tenth as long as my regular haircut and cost about 17 times less.

I’ve had a fringe this short before, for reasons of fashion, and I remember that era well because every time I saw my late mother, she started whistling ballads from the medieval times. Her repertoire was amazing. They say you’ll miss them when they’re gone, and I do not miss this.

What’s different with this micro-fringe (“baby bangs”, Americans call them) is that it’s made me look as if my ears stick out. Except my ears do not stick out. I’ll tell you whose ears did stick out, though, and that was my dad. People called him toby jug and wing nut and nobody ever said “cheers” without adding “big ears”, and my mother probably had a whistle repertoire for this too. Maybe that’s why they didn’t stay together, or maybe there were other factors at play. One time my sister and I found a diary of his from the 60s with only a single entry, “Ears pinned back”, and it hardly seemed possible that his ears had once upon a time protruded more. On reflection, I think he might have put this in as a joke for the kinds of people who riffle through ancient diaries.

Anyway, I have managed to make myself look a lot more like a man, by the simple expedient of letting a man-hair expert loose on my female hair, and the man I most resemble is, unsurprisingly, my dad. Never bully anyone into cutting your fringe. It’s like blackmailing someone into treating your root canal.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist