Devoted twirler speaks

Columnist passes time by hair, pencil spinning

By: Sara Boyd

Posted: 11/7/05

If you know me at all, then I'm sure you're aware of my problem. If you don't know me, then to you I'm the girl walking around the halls twirling her hair.

My name is Sara, and I'm a hair twirler.

Hair twirling is something I've been struggling with for a number of years now. I've tried a number of ways to quit, but I'm just not strong enough. I'll quit for a day and then be surrounded by other girls playing with their hair, and next thing I know, I've got a section of my hair wrapped around my finger.

I'm not even sure how it started, but I do know it's contagious. My friends would hang out with me, and I would start twirling my hair. The next thing you know, they're doing it too.

It's even gotten to the point that a friend of mine did a research project on me and my "behavioral traits."

My mother has tried to get me to stop, and my boyfriend urges me to quit, but it's out of my hands. It's become such a part of my everyday routine that I don't even realize when I'm doing it anymore.

When I'm at home, I'll be sitting, watching TV when all of a sudden my mom will slap my hand. It isn't until she does that that I realize I've been twirling.

When I'm in class, I know that to my professors, it must look like I'm not paying attention at all because I'm sitting there twirling away. I've even had a few professors take the time to interrupt class to comment on my twirling.

I've tried keeping my hair pulled back so the temptation of twirling is not in my face. But then I find myself just reaching back and grabbing hair out of my ponytail … which I'm sure looks really cool.

I am aware that many hair twirlers play with their hair because they have anxiety, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder or depression, but I really don't think that's accurate for me. I'm pretty sure I twirl my hair because I must have Attention Deficit Disorder or something.

I constantly need to be entertained by something.

I'm the type of person who will be in the middle of a sentence, see a bright, shiny object and stop to focus on that.

And for the few moments in class or watching TV that I'm not twirling my hair, you can bet that I probably am twirling my pencil. Twirling my pencil is something that I have more recently occupied myself with to try to stop the hair twirling.

I figure twirling my pencil still keeps me entertained in class … not that the lecture doesn't … and I probably don't look quite so ditzy and air-headed when I twirl rather than my hair.

But pencil twirling still can't compare to my hair twirling. It's just not the same. I always seem to keep going back to hair twirling.

Even though my mom believes I'll be bald by the time I'm 30 because of my hair twirling, it's almost become a part of who I am.

If people were to imitate me, all they would have to do is make sarcastic comments while twirling their hair.

I know for now there is no stopping my addiction. It would take something extreme to get me to stop, like cutting off my fingers or chopping off all my hair. And, well, I chopped off my hair once myself when I was 5, and trust me, it wasn't a good look.

In a way I've come to except my bad habit, and until I have to fully grow up and get a real job, I will continue to twirl my hair.

Boyd is a senior print journalism major and a chief copy editor of The Spectator.