There’s nothing i despise more than useless conversation. I know, it’s a necessary evil sometimes, but I still hate it!
I concur. This is the reason why I started cutting my own hair.
Hey! Me too! It’s like chatting up the dental hygenist. Sorry, but you are uncomfortably close to my face for a total stranger. Let’s not make it any more intimate than necessary, OK? I am incapable of making small talk, anyway. I don’t know the right questions to ask (mostly because, at heart, I really don’t care much of the time) and I don’t like people asking questions about me. I like people in theory but I don’t see the need to cultivate a personal relationship with everyone I meet. Sounds harsh, I guess, but that’s the way I am and I like it.
Sure, maybe the subject is useless, but the conversation doesn’t have to be. Use this wonderful forced opportunity to test conversation techniques. For example, omit all b’s from your words, or squeak instead of saying the word “the”, or switch the order of your nouns and verbs, or constantly find ways to refer to yesterday’s breakfast. Especially if your hairdresser sees hundreds of people a week and won’t remember you well, you can make this into a fun and productive time 
I know this is MPSIMS and not IMHO, but I just have to say Wow! I feel exactly the opposite.
For ten years I had a wonderful hairdresser whom I adored not only because he cut my hair very well, but also because I loved chatting with him about my work, my family, current events, books, etc.
Now that he’s gone back to school, I keep trying different hairdressers, and they all seem to have the same problem. Sure they cut my hair O.K., but they don’t talk to me. I don’t want to have to sit for 20 minutes in dead silence trying to eavesdrop on the conversation of the client next door. I want my own small talk! I want to know why you became a hairdresser, where you live, if you’ve got any kids, and I want to be able to tell you about my sister’s birthday and what my boss said to me.
JMHO.
I can handle small talk (or rather, I find being forced into close proximity with a stranger equally awkward with and without small talk.) But it drives me crazy when they try to lecture me about my hair care habits.
(Yes, I do brush my hair, thank you very much, but it tangles when it gets wet. No, I do not want to spend $15 on this wonderful shampoo that will get rid of all my split ends. I don’t care whether I have split ends. I have never met anybody other than a hairdresser who could actually perceive split ends on other people, and in any case I can think of more interesting things to do with $15. Please stop shaking your head and clucking at me. You are not my mother and it’s none of your damn business what I do with my hair.)
I dread this so much that I haven’t gotten my hair cut in a year and a half. Does this make me a weirdo?
I like mine short, so I learned to cut it. It’s earlobe-length now, and about once a month I’ll go trim half an inch off it.
Add me to the list of small-talk haters. I run out of stuff to ask after about 15 minutes. And I get my hair highlighted as well as cut, so we’re talkin’ (or not) 2 hour stretches of conversational agony. Ugh.
Here is what I most want, if I could afford it:
A haircutting diva. I want a hairstylist who will take one look at me when I walk in and yell, “Shut up!!” This stylist will work in fuming silence, allowing me to say nothing, all the while making my hair a fabulous masterpiece that looks good without me putting any effort into it whatsoever. That would be the shit.
Ditto for me. Get this: I learned how to do my own weave! I’ve been watching the hairdresser do it for years, and I dread the booooring patter and forking over $100 plus. So I tore some foil into little squares, bought some highlighting stuff, and did it myself. It came out great! And it cost $11! And instead of trying to make small talk, I can listen to a Pink Floyd CD while doing the highlighting.
I always take a book. Once it is clear on what I want done with my hair, I dive into the book.
Bob
well, ive been going to the same one for 18 years & I can’t hear her & she doesn’t talk to me & even if she could how would she with those sharp things in her hands?
that I love my hairdresser, but he’s a B-I-G flamer. I don’t mind that, either, except he wants to tell me all about the size, shape, duration, etc. of whoever he most recently “slept” with.
It’s awkward, ya know? I mean, I don’t share similar details, although he would love it, but I just don’t believe that anyone can bring someone to orgasm in under 4 minutes. Although I am a bit curious…
What really sucks is that I LOVE how he cuts my hair. And he’s a great person, but just,uhm, ‘hung’ up on sex.
Life is full of gives and takes.
I love talking to the hairdresser. Good heavens, I can talk anybody’s ear off! I think I wear him out!
I confess. I try to pick hair stylists based on their ability to make small talk. I found one who small talked quite well and I went there for five years. Messed up my hair almost every time, but he made small talk well.
Dang it though, closed up shop and left for another city 
I fyou don’t want to listen to them why not wear earplugs?
I’m lucky enough that I don’t go to a hairdresser, I go to a barber. And he’s good in that he cuts my hair well, for the most part, and also never ceases talking so I have to do nothing but nod and say “ha-ha” and “hmmm” while he tells me the same jokes each time I get my hair cut, which is twice a year. Of course there was the time he got an upsetting phonecall right in the middle of my haircut and my little boy regular turned into a whiffle, which looked really silly on me…I mean, for crying out loud I’m 36, way too old for a whiffle. That was $9 wasted.
I love small talk!
I use to pay my old hair stylist guy $30 for a cut (and $5 for a tip) because he was outstanding at small talk. I never felt like I was a number with him.
Go to Bo-Rics and I feel like I’m on a conveyor belt of hair cuts.
After years of lamenting the loss of my hair stylist ( I can’t afford the cut or the time to go that far every six weeks) I finally found a nice salon near by and THEY ALL LOVE ME and Know me there after two visits. I know alot of it has to do with I never see big people anymore.
*My *dental hygenist always schedules an extra hour around me because we click together so well.
*MY * OB/GYN’s LOVE me because I can actually talk big person/non pregnant lady/non-gyno talk to them. You know, news of the real world.
Anyone can cut hair/clean teeth. Small talk is an artform.
In this age of hurry hurry hurry, rush rush rush rush, the art of non results oriented chit chat is slowly dying off.
Pay a compliment to a complete stranger one day. Just a
“You know, that is a great haircut/sweater/shoes.”
i just told some young guy ( maybe 18) tonight at the store that I thought his red hair/freckles and hairstyle were great and he had a great face for modeling. I meant it too. God, where were these balls when I was that age. I’d banged him in a heart beat.
Watch them perk up.
That’s all.