Haircut

I go to the hairdresser occasionally to get my hair cut and dyed, as one does. I like to dye my hair bright colours, and starting from a black base, the bleach+colouring process is quite drawn out, taking a whole afternoon in the salon. Normally I quite enjoy having my hair played with (probably a throwback when we used to braid each other's hair when I was in primary school), but today I had a weird and unpleasant experience, somewhat reminiscent of this story.

I made an appointment and went to the hairdresser as usual. When I got in, there were a couple of other people getting their hair cut, so I had to wait. There was also a man, perhaps in his 30s (I'm terrible at estimating people's ages), waiting for an appointment. He stared at me when I came in, to the point of discomfort. When I asked him "what?", he exclaimed "she needs a champagne!" and offered me a glass of one. I turn it down, not having had much to eat because I was feeling a little under the weather after going out on Friday night.

After we got moved to the chairs to get our hair done, he makes all sorts of crude jokes about "titties" and his pubic hair. Gross. At some point he asked me if I was religious (huh?), and when I replied in the negative, he says something about how that makes all his jokes acceptable (wrong. I still think they were in bad taste). [TW] Then he went on to talk about how somebody electrocuted their wife/girlfriend and how he thinks they could have got away with stabbing her in any other country (WTF?!). [/TW] I interjected with something like "nobody should get away with that", and pulled out my phone and did my best to ignore his chatter after that. Finally, he left and I was pleased to be left the fuck alone.

Well. It turns out that he paid for my hair cut + colour when he left. I have no idea why he did that (to make up for being an obnoxious slightly drunk jerk? Some misguided attempt at being a gentleman? Was he trying to flirt with me? Was he feeling a bit threatened by an obviously young woman getting a haircut in an expensive salon without an attendant male?). WTF? Obviously I'm not going to accept a ($70) favour from him, and this whole thing makes me pretty uncomfortable, so I think I made the right decision by giving the hairdresser money and telling them to give him his money back. That way it's not my problem any more, in a way that if I had accepted the favour it would be. I'd have to thank him or something if I ran into him on the street (the location he said he lives is near me) and act grateful for his making me uncomfortable. I may need to deal with being called a bitch for not accepting his favour, but I think I prefer that to feeling like I owe somebody something.