Curls seem to get mixed reactions from people who don’t have them. Some love them, and would willingly admit how much they would give to have them. At the same time, there are some who think it might be too much and don’t understand why girls with curly hair can’t treat theirs the same as their straight haired peers. Either way, having natural curls is something that will never be fully understood by people who don’t have them.

1. Every day is a surprise.

When you try to style your hair, you never know for sure how it will turn out. If it’s one of the days that it chooses to come out looking like you’re more of a monster than a person, the only way you can hope to solve it is to take another shower and start over.

2. Brushing your hair while it’s dry is practically a death sentence.

If you can even get a brush through your hair, it is a terrible idea to brush it while it’s dry. More likely than not, it’ll just become a fluffy mess that takes up more room than your face, and again, the only hope of fixing it is to take a shower and start over.

3. You can get away with not washing or brushing it longer than most.

While most girls have to brush their hair every day and wash it at least every other day, you don’t find it as necessary. Sure, you might be able to feel how gross it is, but in reality, nobody else can see it. The tangles get hidden and mistaken for more curls, and as long as you don’t say anything, nobody will look closely enough to tell.

4. People want to touch it.

Strangers come up to you constantly, asking to touch your hair. Sometimes, they won’t actually ask and they’ll just pull on one of your curls and watch it bounce back. Think Ramona in the first Ramona book. Except these people are often much older than five, and they still don’t have basic manners.

5. Similarly, people ask about it.

“How do you make your hair curl like that?” “Does your hair do that naturally?” and other ways of forming the same question are asked every time you meet people. It most often happens with people much older than you, and you feel bad enough that you humor them and let them awe over it for a few minutes.

6. You have a love/hate relationship with your hair.

Even though there are some days when you wish more than anything that you could straighten it with a reliable sense that it would stay that way for more than a few minutes, you truly love your hair. Even though it frustrates you sometimes, the attention you get from not looking like everyone else is actually very rewarding. At the end of the day, you wouldn’t trade it in for anything.