It was almost a year ago now. I was trudging up Cambridge’s only gradient towards The Castle pub, with a Freshers’ Week friend who, remarkably, still hadn’t slipped a metaphorical dagger through the ribs of our relationship after three years of mind games, bad music, and biophysics. We were both tired and hadn’t seen each other for a few months, so conversation turned predictably into nostalgia.

Apparently I am “the biggest change since geek-week”, bigger even than the defensively single-minded physicist who now spends his mornings composing experimental literature and evenings debating political theory over peaty single malt. Not because my veganism entailed giving up the leviathan beef burgers we used to construct together, or even because I’ve absconded from the college community to a tiny caravan off Mill Road with my now long-term partner. 

You see, I’ve grown my hair. For a metal-head who openly expressed both his musical interests and disdain for convention through other aesthetic statements, it didn’t seem too drastic in my head. Of course, plans for growing out a short cut rarely mature with dignity, so I spent months hidden under an exceptionally attractive Nordic-patterned head scarf. It became ‘my thing’ – I even wore it without a trace of irony to my first June Event – and after my hair was finally able to break free, I spent a summer being questioned by the college porters who swore they'd never seen my likeness before. So much for striking cheekbones.

Things could be a lot worse. The dreadlocks I've oft-threatened have yet to materialise, and seem a lot less imminent now than the onset of professional life. A messy bun looks fine with a shirt and high-collared jacket, and has enough body to avoid any accusations of trend-hopping. I refuse to acknowledge it as a ‘man-bun’, however; that nasty little modifier somewhat redolent of the ‘no homo’ uttered by back-slapping males wary of appearing too effeminate or homosexual. Adding the modifier ‘man’ before certain words – such as man-bag and man-hug – is a cheap, tasteless, get-out-of-jail-free card, which seeks to redefine traits and behaviours as some kind of forgiveable (and, needless to say, heterosexual) masculine quirk; allowing for maximum retention of ‘lad points’.

No, mine is a real bun – gasp – like women wear. True, I often choose to counteract the long hair with a vegan-leather jacket, but that's not a Khal Drogo thing, it's a black-metal aesthetic thing. With my hair down I've received the comment  “it's manly, like Samson” – as if I needed the reassurance that the world is still okay, men accept me as ‘one of them’ despite the potential threat I pose to the security of their entrenched gender norms.

I definitely don't claim to have experienced, or understand, the kinds of sexism that women experience every day of their lives, but even slightly toeing the line of acceptability has made me completely reconsider – a lot of things. It makes me even gladder that I made the change. And, what in Baphomet's name would I do at a metal gig with short hair anyway?