Dear Level

What to Do When You Don’t Like Your Partner’s Style Choices

You may not be on board with every makeover. Here’s how to be supportive anyway.

Aliya S. King
LEVEL
Published in
4 min readNov 28, 2020

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Illustration: Olivia Fields

Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.

In 1993, I decided I wanted to stop chemically treating my hair and just let my natural curls do their own thing. It wasn’t a popular concept at the time; a woman’s beauty and femininity were still tightly connected to how she styled her hair. But for countless reasons, both political and professional, I wanted no parts of artificially straightened hair anymore.

My boyfriend, a college senior, was not supportive. His idea of glamorous was Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, and Toni Braxton. And my plan — a half-inch Afro — was not what they were rocking.

I told him why the cut was important to me, but he didn’t budge. My shoulder-length straightened hair was all he’d ever known, and what I was considering was far too drastic for him to accept.

So I asked him point blank: Are you attracted to me or my hair?

He refused to answer. I went through with the big chop the following day. (We broke up within a few weeks. He said it wasn’t my hair…

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Aliya S. King
Aliya S. King

Written by Aliya S. King

Aliya S. King is an author, freelance writer and editor.

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