UPDATE Sued Friend After He Shaved My Head Bald While I Sleep For His Cousin

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]Am I the A-hole for pressing charges on a former friend for shaving my head in my sleep? Plus updates 1 and 1/2 years later.

[00:00:08]Original post. For context, a relative of what used to be a close friend of mine, who we'll call Gary for the story, [music] contracted cancer. I'm in 20s, male, was sympathetic, and even contributed $100 to a donation pool for their treatment. But Gary came to me one day and took his hat off to reveal a freshly shaven head. He told me that everyone in his family were doing it in support of his relative, and so were a lot of our mutual friends.

[00:00:35]>> [music] >> Then he asked that I get on a bandwagon.

[00:00:38]I told him I didn't want to shave my head because I like my hair. My hair is black, regularly combed and well-styled.

[00:00:45]>> [music] >> He said I could just get a wig or something, and he had actually brought his shaver kit. He was unboxing it when I told him this was not happening. I don't even really know his relative that he's doing this for, so I'm not doing it. End of discussion. He called me an A-hole angry, and we didn't speak for a week. Then last Saturday I got invited to a party at another close friend's house. There I found out that Gary had tried the same thing on several other friends, and only a couple of them actually did shave their heads. Gary wasn't at the party, so I had a blast hanging out, playing video games, and listening to rock music. But I had way too much to drink and couldn't drive home, so they said I could just sleep upstairs. I passed out on a bed and it was a blissful sleep till I was shaken awake by another friend who told me Gary had showed up late, >> [music] >> and they caught him shaving my head while I was passed out. I saw what I looked like in a mirror and wanted to scream like I was in a horror movie.

[00:01:43]Gary even shaved off one of my eyebrows.

[00:01:46]Gary was still there and acting proud of himself saying, "Now you're going to have to shave off the rest, just like me, lol." I was furious and called the cops. When they got there, Gary fully admitted to what he had done to me and even said he was justified. The police didn't seem to think so as this is classified as a form of assault. They asked me if I wanted to press charges and the first words out of my mouth were, "Hell yes." Gary cursed me out while they took him away in cuffs. I tried getting my hair restyled into something presentable, but there was no saving it and now I'm bald, too. [music] Now a bunch of Gary's family are telling me to drop the charges because Gary was off his meds and didn't mean to do it. I was like, "WTF?" because I never knew he was on meds, but I still refused to drop the charges. It'll take months to grow my hair back the way it was, but all of the calls and messages from Gary's relatives are starting to get to me.

[00:02:44]Just about everyone else in our friend group has cut Gary out though and say that I'm doing the right thing by not dropping the charges. So, now I'm divided. Am I the [ __ ] for pressing charges on a former friend for shaving my head in my sleep?

[00:03:00]Now for the top comments before reading the updates more than a year later. Not the [ __ ] Contact the DA that is handling the case and let him know that his family is pressuring you to drop the charges. They may be violating the law, too. If Gary hasn't learned to take his meds, a little time in jail will teach him that lesson.

[00:03:19]That is a very good idea. I'll take care of that as soon as I can.

[00:03:23]Make copies of all the texts, save the voicemails. Don't block them. Let them spew as all this info should go to the police. And yeah, not the [ __ ] Gary is an adult. He knows what'll happen if he goes off his meds and he did it anyway. Sounds like his family might be doing a wee bit of enabling there. No means no. If he hasn't figured it out by now, the authorities need to teach him.

[00:03:48]Not the [ __ ] The police called it assault because that's what it is. Block all his relatives, but save any messages you already have and report them for harassment. Do not feel bad about pressing charges either. He assaulted you and was proud of it.

[00:04:04]Edit, I want to make something clear here. So many people have said things like, "Dude, it's just hair." But would they all be saying that if I wasn't a man? What if I was some girl that had hair that took years to grow? Would they be saying the same thing? Sure, hair grows back, but it takes time. If it was something that grew back fast, people would be less inclined to care. But it's not fast. It takes months. And for someone who had long hair, years. That's a lot of time wasted growing. And I don't plan on pushing for Gary to go to prison, but I don't plan to drop the charges either.

[00:04:40]>> [music] >> His family already bailed him out. And while I didn't know he was on meds, I knew he had quite the temper and even an entitled attitude at times.

[00:04:50]One example being a lunch where he wanted us all to combine the check and split it evenly. He got the most expensive thing on the menu, while I got a cheeseburger. When we all said, "No."

[00:05:01]Gary went off on us for not being good friends. He's always been an ass when he doesn't get his way and I've only known him for like 3 years. This incident was the last straw for not just me, but a lot of other mutual friends. As for the charges, I don't want to send Gary to prison, but I would like him to get some therapy and community service. With the way Gary has acted around me in the past and what he did to me, I actually wonder how long before he got more violent.

[00:05:29]I've seen and heard of him getting in fights for less. I've also gotten many comments from people saying, "You're an [ __ ] He has cancer." If you actually read what I posted, >> [music] >> Gary's not one with cancer. A relative of his, I don't know, does. And no, I don't know what kind of cancer, cuz Gary didn't elaborate.

[00:05:49]>> [music] >> He wanted me to shave my head for this person, and when I refused, he left in a tantrum, then shaved my head while I was passed out drunk at a party.

[00:05:59]Now, 40 updates more than a year later, a friend of mine just showed me a video yesterday in which my old post had been read.

[00:06:06]>> [music] >> Honestly, I'd nearly forgotten about it, since I was only there to ask if I was the [ __ ] or not. And since I don't want to go through the pain of [music] trying to do an update on AITA, I thought I'd just do it here, since entitled spells out Gary pretty well.

[00:06:21]Other than the shaving incident, he tried to get us to partially pay for his food multiple times by combining the check and dividing it equally when he always got the most expensive thing on the menu, and once even pulled the I forgot my wallet bit. He was described as an neckbeard by multiple people, including women he flirted with.

[00:06:40]>> [music] >> He even tried to get a married neighbor woman that was older than him to have an affair with her, and then later egged her apartment door when she refused.

[00:06:49]That one I only learned about a couple months after my original post, and no, Gary never saw consequences for doing that. I also learned he stole several video games and DVDs from friends, mooched food and drinks out of their fridges, and even went through a period as a squatter for 2 months by refusing to leave a house had been let into by former tenant, and the landlord actually paid him to leave. Gary's also an extreme hypocrite that contradicted himself more than a corrupt politician.

[00:07:19]For example, 1 minute he'd be anti-vax, the next he'd be complaining about other people who weren't getting the C-19 vaccine. Pretty sure he never got it, too. I can't believe I ever had any sympathy for this man. To recap, someone a former friend of mine named Gary's related to [music] got cancer, and Gary went around trying to get our friend group to all shave their heads. He only got a couple of them to agree and even brought a shaving kit to my apartment because he just assumed I'd join in as well and was already unboxing it before I even got the chance to say anything. I told him the shaving was not happening.

[00:07:57]Well, he decided to make an example of me and waited till I was good and passed out from drinking at a friend's party. I was so dead to the world that I had to be shaken awake by a friend after Gary got caught shaving my head. He took off one of my eyebrows and messed up my hair beyond saving and he was laughing his butt off over having done it. So, yes, the rest had to come off. I ended up pressing charges on Gary for assault and found out he's been on meds for mental disorder for years and he'd stopped taking the meds, which is one of the reasons he was so loopy. But, his tune changed pretty quick when police arrested him since what he'd done qualifies as assault. Gary's family then harassed me and tried to make me drop the charges. I not only didn't drop the charges, but I reported the harassment to the police. Only problem is, it didn't bloody stop. In fact, it got worse. Mainly from Gary's mother, though I can see where Gary got his charming personality from. She showed up to my apartment a couple of weeks after the shaving incident to scream at me that I knew nothing about what they were going through and a little hair wasn't a big deal. I told her my hair was a big deal to me and what Gary did was inexcusable.

[00:09:11]Well, that earned me a slap on the face followed by a swift kick to the nuts followed by [music] a few more kicks to my body after I went down. It was all recorded by a camera that I had watching the front door as landlord wouldn't let me put in a ring doorbell cam. One of my neighbors saw her and screamed at her they'd be calling the police. Gary's mom ran and I ended up going to the hospital with minor injuries. Mostly just bruises, a black eye and a sore groin.

[00:09:38]Gary's mother got arrested, and I filed a lawsuit against her for attacking me.

[00:09:43]I was her in court twice for both his assault on me and a lawsuit I filed for her assault.

[00:09:49]This woman had taken several self-defense classes over the years, so she knew how to fight.

[00:09:55]>> [music] >> That had a judge consider her a trained individual, and she was sentenced to 6 months in jail, given 2 years probation, and ordered to pay my medical bills. She actually cried to the judge about the money, but he wasn't having it. It took some time to see her in court again for my lawsuit against her, as she was out of jail by then. I was awarded 10,000 for the harassment, emotional damages, and lost work hours, and she had to pay all court and lawyer fees, which she cried about because she didn't want to pay anything to the man who'd ruined her and her son's lives. But she had the money for both court cases because she had no problem paying. But around that time, I heard Gary's relative with cancer passed away. I don't know any details, just that they passed on. I admit that was sad, but I never knew this person. But Gary made their condition his hill to die on when he tried to make an example out of me. Gary got some probation and community service for what he did to my hair, and he cut contact with our entire friend group, and eventually moved away. Where to? I don't know. I don't care, either. As for my hair, well, it grew back just fine.

[00:11:06]Took nearly half a year to get it back how it was.

[00:11:09]>> [music] >> My boss had me put out of sight for a while, and I was wearing a hat everywhere for at least a month. I did take that 10K I got in the lawsuit and combined it with my savings for a down payment on a house. So, I've since moved into a much better abode. I also have a girlfriend that's now living with me. It was a bit soon for her to move in, but there were extenuating circumstances.

[00:11:32]We're making it work though, and I'm happy.

[00:11:35]I want to know how long it took to regrow his eyebrow.

[00:11:39]I was at a sleepover when I was 13, and one of the group decided to put that hair removal cream on my eyebrows for a laugh because I fell asleep early. Not the same as shaving it, but they left it on so long, I woke up screaming from the burns. I didn't get my eyebrows back properly for over 10 years. I'm actually very lucky I got any hair back, and that the burns weren't a lot worse. I know people who shaved a line into their eyebrow for fashion, and they never came back quite right. Eyebrows are weird.

[00:12:10]I was a teen girl in the '90s, and I got into the trend of plucking my eyebrows until they were basically one hair wide.

[00:12:17]Pictures make me cringe so hard. I look like a damn alien. They've never quite recovered. Still got some weird patches.

[00:12:25]And yeah, that shaved line thing was popular with the guys. I guess now I know how that worked out for some of them.

[00:12:32]I lost my eyebrows when I went through chemo. They never grew back right. The hair is hair as sparser, and a couple of hairs get a wonky bend in them. They also came back several shades lighter than before.

[00:12:45]I want to know how cancer patients feel watching their family and friends hair grow back. No one is ever the hole for not shaving their heads in solidarity.

[00:12:54]Cancer patient here. I had a couple of friends offer to shave their heads in solidarity when I went through chemo, and I asked them not to. I told them to enjoy their hair, and that them being bald wouldn't actually make my life any easier. I honestly think it's a bit of an attention grab.

[00:13:12]Disclaimer, [music] I've never had cancer, and nobody I would call very close to me has had cancer of that severity. But I always felt like if it were me, I would feel like other people voluntarily shaving their a off is like rubbing it in my face. I tend to take things the wrong way. I have a habit of needing social cues explained to me, >> [music] >> so take that as well. But, I just don't think I'd want to look at a bunch of voluntarily bald people when my hair is falling out in clumps, and I feel like crap. Like, you did that on purpose? I don't know. I hope you're doing better.

[00:13:48]Last story. Am I the A hole for encouraging my friend to not get a vasectomy? My 34 male friend, 30 male, who we'll call J, told me that he was considering a vasectomy, even though he really didn't want to get one, because his girlfriend of 3 weeks demanded that [music] he get one if he was going to date her. I asked him why he didn't want one, and he had a few reasons that I felt were all super justified. Honestly, I don't think he needed a reason beyond the fact that he didn't want to. He said that this lady he is dating said he would break up with him if he didn't, because he needed to be supportive of her views. I assume about the abortion issue.

[00:14:25]>> [music] >> Probably rude of me to assume, but I'm being honest. I told him 3 weeks is way too soon to be demanding body altering surgeries, even if mostly reversible, and if he's not comfortable with it, let her dump him. It's his body, not hers.

[00:14:41]If he was demanding she get body altering surgery when she didn't want to, I'd be smacking him upside the head.

[00:14:48]Well, he told her he wasn't going to, that if she wanted to leave him, go ahead, but he isn't comfortable. She wigged out and asked him why, and he told her about our conversation. She then proceeded to message me on social media, telling me to stay out of their business, and that I'm an A hole. I just said lol and block her. I genuinely don't feel like an A hole. I'm actually rather [music] proud of myself. I believe and stand by what I said. But, this is the internet, so I will leave it to you guys to say your piece and judge away. So, am I the A hole? Not the A hole. All you did was give your friend your opinion. That's what friends are there for. Honestly, the girl sounds crazy to have an ultimatum this early for something quite serious and reaching out to insult you confirmed her coconuts. I imagine she wouldn't have the best reaction if he demanded she go on birth control or they break up. I agree with what you said. It's far too early and at the end of the day that decision should lie with the person whose body it is. Besides, [music] it's not like you purposefully swayed his opinion. It sounds like he never wanted to get a vasectomy and she's forcing him into one. So, you're definitely not the hole. Just a good friend offering support.

[00:16:00]>> [music] >> Thank you. I just want to say that I totally support men getting them for their long-term partner / wife, especially in solidarity. I just don't support ultimatums from people who are barely in a relationship, especially when it's body altering surgery.

[00:16:17]100% agree. I think it's a great option for birth control and I think we should normalize more men taking that route, especially since it's far more safer than female birth controls. But, you should never force that on a partner, especially someone you're barely dating.

[00:16:33]Not the hole. This isn't about the vasectomy. This is about a person he has known for 3 weeks making demands about his bodily autonomy. I'm not trying to be mean or harsh, but is her friend okay? This is so extreme and abnormal.

[00:16:48]I'm glad he told her no, but the fact that he even considered it is very concerning. How is his mental health?

[00:16:55]Maybe you should encourage him to seek some therapy. The hole in this situation, and I say this as a woman, is this horrible woman who would make such an unreasonable demand after 3 weeks of dating or 3 years of dating. And attacking you for supporting your friend is not okay. Good job, OP. Keep an eye on this situation. This woman he is dating is a real worry. If she continues to press him, send her some detailed info on how to get a salpingectomy, removal of the fallopian tubes, rendering the woman totally sterile.

[00:17:27]Then, she can put her money and bodily autonomy in her own hands. He's okay. I think he's inexperienced with relationships and he simply really wanting to be what he thinks is a good man. Everyone wants to be loved.

[00:17:41]Edit/Update: He dumped her, called to finalize fishing plans, and he let me know he broke up with her. I told him I made a Reddit post and we laughed. Beers and fish tomorrow.