How should I wear my thinning/receding hair?

I'm at that "awkward" stage in the hair loss process where I've lost a significant amount of hair, but I'm not quite bald yet. Many people recommend that at this point, you either shave your head or wear a buzzcut.

I feel that in my situation, short hair makes the receding hairline and top thinning more obvious than if it were grown out and styled correctly. I also think that short hair draws more attention to the extra body weight I am currently carrying. I'm getting conflicting advice from family and friends on what looks best to them.

I was hoping to get some opinions from people I don't know, so I've attached pictures to this post. The ones with the longer hair were taken two months ago, right before I shaved it all off. The ones with the short hair were taken a few days ago. What do you think I should do? Thanks in advance :)

As short as possible, or shaved. Want support for shaving your head?

Go here!

http://www.slybaldguys.com/smf/

I think longer looks better. Doesn't look like you're balding much to an untrained eye (when your hair is long).

Are you taking propecia/rogaine?

I am personally biased towards shorter haircuts as I feel that I look better with them myself and I also tend to think that other men benefit from them. Your longer hair does hide your balding pattern more effectively than the shorter cut, but the hairline recession is still visible. Your face is obscured, but I sense that the shorter cut will suit you and you might even look better if you buzz it shorter.

I think shave your full head is the best option. Else depends on you

God people give terrible advice..SMH Clearly you still have more than enough hair to keep them long, just invest in a decent haircut longer on the top and short on the sides and back. Your haircut on the picture is horrible but you have enough hair to get a decent one. Why would you shave your hair now? To look older and uglier sooner? Don't worry you'll come to that but in the meantime help yourself a little bit and get a nice haircut.

I think the longer hair looks better.

IMO the shorter hair looks better . I would even go shorter . It will be more liberating , nothing to worry about
The longer hair is just covering up your receding areas

The short hair cut looks obvious that you are balding, very much so. I don't see it with the longer hair, let it grow back.

Thanks for the input guys. I'm probably going to do longer hair for now since it's doesn't look terribly bad/obvious that way, and opinion is still pretty evenly divided. To respond to a few people's remark's/questions;

- I actually did shave my head bald after I had the long hair. The buzzcut pictures are just whatever has grown back in the past few months. I attached a photo of it as well as a few old ones before the hair loss started for if you're curious. To be honest, I hated the bald look. Mostly because of how much heavier it made me look.

- I've been on Propecia for 11 months. I started out at a .5 mg dosage, then moved up to 1 mg this past month. I have not noticed a change (good or bad) in hair growth.

- With the long hair, I never had a haircut. That is how it grew naturally. A trimming would probably provide some improvement on the long haired look.