Like many guys (and, I believe, most women), I don’t like changing barbers/stylists. Even if whoever you just went to wasn’t very good … if that person didn’t destroy your hair, you probably will go back. Right? Just because the next new one could be worse.

But “going back” wasn’t really an option for me, this time. Because I’m on the other side of the world from my regular barber, in SoCal.

So, I’m looking “new” … and I’m looking exotic, because almost all the barbers I have seen in this town seem to be guys from the subcontinent. And I can vouch, from experiences in Paris and Hong Kong, that communication issues are not a good way to start a haircut.

I knew it would be tricky. And I knew it would be different. I wasn’t wrong.

First, I crossed the street because it put me in a slightly different neighborhood. Abu Dhabi is like that. It has really enormous blocks; major streets occur about once every 400 yards. And if you move over one block … the neighborhood can be quite different. Newer. Older. Poorer. Different. In this case, I crossed the street because I think it’s a bit more upscale over there.

The outer edge of each of these blocks tend to be big-ticket businesses. Around here, that means big retailers, hotels, banks. Get inside the edges, however, and you tend to find scads of small businesses on the inner side of the crust … and probably long tracts of residential areas in the middle.

The block we’re on now … a little rough. Across the street? Not so bad. So I went looking for a barber over there.

I headed south, went past the Adnoc gas station and the Noah’s Ark pre-school … hung a right, into the residential part of the block,  went past the Sri Lanka Embassy … to the next interior street, and headed back toward where I started.

Finally, I saw a couple of barbershops. Known here as “saloons.” I assume it is their version of “salon.”

Like most things here, these are divided by gender. Wouldn’t want men cutting women’s hair, or vice versa.

So,  I wandered past the two shops. The first was fairly basic, with a few people inside … and the second looked a bit slicker. But it had people waiting, and I wasn’t up for that.

So I went back to the first. Named “Electra Gents Saloon” — which in 19th century America might have been a place with booze and card games.

But the name here signifies something else. “Electra” is one of three names of the street also known as “Seventh” and “Zayed the First”. Yes.  The same street has three names, which is fairly common. But I digress. And “gents” tells you it’s for men, and “saloon” means “barber.”

I walked in, and a couple of subcontinent barbers were at work. Two chairs were open. In once, a kid was lounging. Apparently just hanging out. Yakking. Shortly after I came in, an older guy in a white coat (a third barber?) glared at me … as he walked out. A barber who didn’t like my face? Or a barber deciding not to cut my hair by leaving? Or someone who didn’t like my face but wasn’t necessarily a barber? Don’t know.

One of the younger guys motioned for me to sit on a couch. For waiting. So I did. After about five minutes, his chair came open, and he waved me over to what was a fairly standard barber chair. Leather upholstery, a footrest, etc. We started with the usual formalities — the smock over the shoulders, and the strip of paper between the neck and smock.

Then came the tricky part. The guy was looking at me and clearly waiting for some instructions. He apparently spoke little or no English, and I spoke none of whatever it was they were speaking in there. (And I’m pretty sure it was a language from India. Looking at some of the stuff in there, I decided it was an Indian place. But I could be wrong.)

I held up my fingers, showing the space between my thumb and forefinger, and did a circling motion from one side of my head to the back to the other side … and we were OK on length. He got to work. Electric razors, then scissors … then some soap and a straight edge for spots behind the ears and on the sideburns …He was doing it at the right length, and in a fashion that seemed familiar. He had one hand on my head, most of the time, like I was a little kid and he was worried I would move.

After 10 minutes or so, he got out a big mirror, and I looked … and I asked for a little off the top — not verbally, but by pulling up hair on the top of my head. He seemed to get the idea, and he got busy with that.

Fairly straightforward, so far. Aside from the general conversation in the room and not being able to understand a word of it.

Then came the local/odd/unique part of it. The barber loosened the smock and sanitary paper … and began massaging my head. Temples,  mostly, and then quite a bit of tugging on my eyebrows. Yes. Eyebrows. Pulling on them. Kneading them. He rested his forearms on my shoulders as he did this.

It had a sort of neutral impact. It didn’t hurt. It didn’t help. All I could think was … it might be some sort of subcontinent practice designed to be positive … in some sense. Maybe it’s supposed to feel good? Release pressure? Prompt blood flow?

Then he went over to the next chair, where the other young barber was doing a shave on a guy with a truly heroic stubble of beard (I was thinking “prickly pear cactus”) … and fetched a fairly heavy machine. It looked like something you would use to buff the wax job on your car.

He fired that up, and tapped me on the back of my head, a sign to bend forward … and he pressed the polisher on my shoulders, and then down my back, and parked it near my lower back — as if he somehow knew my lower back was stiff and achy. (But, then, probably every guy my age on the planet has a stiff and achy lower back.) It seemed to loosen things up a bit. That was helpful.

What it had to do with cutting my hair … well, it had nothing to do with it.  Maybe it’s part of the routine for haircuts in the subcontinent? Or his part of it? One of the guys ahead of me … had his head slapped by his barber … and my barber’s customer, before me, he ended that guy’s session by tugging vigorously on his hair.

Hmm. Well, anyway … He pulled off all the towels, and we were done, and then I asked him “how much.” And he said a word that could have been “fifty” or “fifteen.” I said “fifty?” And he said, “one-five.”

So, I gave him 20 dirhams — 15 for the cut, and a 33 percent tip — and was out the door for 20 dirhams — or right around $5.40. Not even Hong Kong was that inexpensive.

And the haircut is … fine. A fraction of the cost back home, plus the “buffer” massage for 3-4 minutes. So I came out ahead.

I probably won’t wait seven weeks for my next cut.