I stopped shaving sometime around august, I remember making the decision to stop when I found myself dreading the day that I had to shave in the shower because my leg hair was getting too long. If I hated it so much, why was I doing it? My brother never had the experience of accidentally tearing his legs up when first shaving in 5th grade, he never had to take longer in the shower because he had a big event that day, and he was never told that he was gross because of that. 

I had my first experience with someone completely out of line a few days ago. I was wearing a sweater and long pants that came down almost to my shoes. There was only three inches of skin visible, but apparently, that was enough. 

“Woah, when’s the last time you shaved your legs?” the man asked. 

“I don’t shave” 

“Well that’s fine I guess, have I ever told you my story about that?”

“No”, I replied, trying to signal with my tone that I didn’t want to hear it. 

“I was in Paris,” the man continued, set on telling this story despite my expression, “I saw a woman walking towards me, dressed up like she was famous. But even from far away, I could tell something wasn’t quite right. Then she got closer, and I realized, she had hair everywhere. There was hair poking out of her stockings, and armpit hair sprouting out of her shirt. Here she was wearing a $300 outfit and ruining it completely by not shaving”

“I don’t see anything wrong with that,” I said back, trying to contain my anger. 

“I just think there’s something not right with it,” he said.

I glanced down at his legs in the pair of cargo shorts he was wearing. 

They were covered in hair.