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I'm more resigned to the indignity than I was. I tend to try and focus on three things to keep sane:
1) Following hair loss research. Generally success is always 5-10 years away but it is slightly more promising than when I started losing hair 8 or 9 years ago. I would be surprised if there wasn't something half decent in 10 years time; transplants alone have come a long way in the past decade.
However, I am getting to the point now where I'm getting too old for the research to allow me to have hair when doing so is overwhelmingly the norm. My twenties have pretty much been written off because no one ever let me be in my twenties because I looked too old. My thirties will be a write off too for the same reason (strangers tend to predict my age at 45 - I'm 28 - and I've been made to feel unwelcome in bars that attract young people since I turned 20 for the same reason).
I'll take the fix when it comes, but I've already lived my forties once so it'll be interesting whether I care by that point.
2) Study and work. Other people went socialising, I felt distinctly out of place doing so. So I worked long hours and did a lot of study. I still am. The working hard for someone else never paid off because without hair I didn't fit the corporate image and I missed out on promotion to pretty boys who came to work hungover but spun a good yarn and looked the part. Freelance is paying well though.
In terms of study, I expect to be an accountant, chartered secretary and lawyer by 2014. None of these occupations attract pretty people in my experience! The trick to getting by as a bald man is remembering you have to be ten times better than anyone else to get the same chances and actually, having to do things right is surely a damn sight more satisfying than using looks to get on like so many people in this world.
3) Getting my own back. I have no expectation of being treated with respect from people my own age and younger because I'm bald. The upside is I have no inclination to show any respect to them either and get an inordinate amount of pleasure in making pretty people's lives harder than they need to be. They rarely face such challenges because they conform so well so I believe I'm doing them a favour by instilling character.
1) Following hair loss research. Generally success is always 5-10 years away but it is slightly more promising than when I started losing hair 8 or 9 years ago. I would be surprised if there wasn't something half decent in 10 years time; transplants alone have come a long way in the past decade.
However, I am getting to the point now where I'm getting too old for the research to allow me to have hair when doing so is overwhelmingly the norm. My twenties have pretty much been written off because no one ever let me be in my twenties because I looked too old. My thirties will be a write off too for the same reason (strangers tend to predict my age at 45 - I'm 28 - and I've been made to feel unwelcome in bars that attract young people since I turned 20 for the same reason).
I'll take the fix when it comes, but I've already lived my forties once so it'll be interesting whether I care by that point.
2) Study and work. Other people went socialising, I felt distinctly out of place doing so. So I worked long hours and did a lot of study. I still am. The working hard for someone else never paid off because without hair I didn't fit the corporate image and I missed out on promotion to pretty boys who came to work hungover but spun a good yarn and looked the part. Freelance is paying well though.
In terms of study, I expect to be an accountant, chartered secretary and lawyer by 2014. None of these occupations attract pretty people in my experience! The trick to getting by as a bald man is remembering you have to be ten times better than anyone else to get the same chances and actually, having to do things right is surely a damn sight more satisfying than using looks to get on like so many people in this world.
3) Getting my own back. I have no expectation of being treated with respect from people my own age and younger because I'm bald. The upside is I have no inclination to show any respect to them either and get an inordinate amount of pleasure in making pretty people's lives harder than they need to be. They rarely face such challenges because they conform so well so I believe I'm doing them a favour by instilling character.
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