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  1. #1
    Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2012
    Posts
    35

    Default 32 and trying to cope

    Don't know what else to do about this, so I guess I'll post on a forum.

    Recently, I had to get a new driver's license and with it a new photograph. Now I had noted that my top hair was starting to thin when I was 25 (I'm 32 now), but over the years the rate of change was so slow that I scarcely noticed any difference. Then I saw these photos.

    I guess nature will have to take its course, as I don't plan on using drugs or transplants or suchlike. They're a bit too pricey. But even still, this is traumatizing me. I'm a writer; when I was a young man I had a long, lustrous mane of hair down to the middle of my back. Even when I trimmed it to a normal man's length, it was still one of my best features. Now when I take my hat off, I have thin hairs flying in every which direction--either that or Brylcreemed down, in which case I think, my hair being medium brown, they form an unfavourable contrast with my ivory scalp.

    Some say shave or get a crew cut, but I've always found these styles very ugly. It's just too associated with soldiers (no offense to those who have honourably served), hooligans, and mental patients. And less macho types like myself who've gone that route, like Michael Stipe or Andre Agassi, for instance, just seem somewhat effete to me. So I'm planning on hitting the gym and riding an exercise bike until I puke, so as to make my face more gaunt; I could bear losing 10-15 pounds anyway, and I'd say that the thinner a bald man is, the better he looks. Thereafter, if I can't have my dashing and debonair locks, I figure I can at least grow my beard to two or three inches, providing I can keep it neat, kempt, and well-barbered.

    I know they say that baldness matters very little to women, but it matters to me. It's like I don't look like myself any longer, but rather someone else, some much more uninteresting figure, someone quite less vital and robust, not the type of person a woman or an employer would take a chance on.

    Maybe I'm just being vain, but help me out, fellows. This is affecting me; I scarcely go anywhere now where I'll have to doff my beret. When the fact that you were losing your hair really hit you hard, what did you do to change your appearance? Did you think that you didn't look like yourself any longer? How did you cope with it?

    Thanks for entertaining my venting here.

  2. #2
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2010
    Posts
    618

    Default

    I've long thought that the woman issue is irrelevant. Okay, that's not entirely true. I have overheard countless women say they find baldness a turnoff. But still, logic teaches us that a lot of women don't seem to put looks at the top of their list, because a lot of ugly men have partaken in reproduction. Let's just say baldness shrinks the available pool by about half.

    I think deep down the reason none of us want to be bald has nothing to do with women at all. The reason is more along the lines that we don't want to change. I had no inclination to be transformed from the person I was at 18 to the person I was at 20. The change was negative and not on my terms. Presumably the vast majority of people would agree that they would not want a disease where a significant part of their head changed that made them barely recognisable. For example, most people would not want their nose or ears to double in size at an alarming rate, they would not want all their teeth to fall out and they would not want their eyes to change colour. They would want to keep being them and not start feeling like physically they are becoming someone else.

    That's what baldness feels like. Becoming someone else. More attractive or less attractive I will leave you to decide (you all know where I stand on that) it doesn't really matter because I think most people deep down just want to keep being themselves.

    In my view, it is also a someone else that is a prisoner of society. I went from being someone independent minded and free to someone who was constantly being told what hairstyle I should have by, friends and strangers alike (needless to say, it was the characterless shaved head) and told how I should behave. Instead of being an equal in society, I became the subject of patronising pity or ridicule. It takes a strong independent streak to break the chains.

    I have only been able to get a semblance of independence back by refusing to shave my head (very crap look to crap look is not worth 10 minutes of my time) and getting the upper hand in social situations quickly, whether that means getting my ammunition of cheap shots readied or getting ready to patronise.

  3. #3
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Posts
    116

    Default

    How bad is your hair loss?

    You say it's been gradual, to the point you haven't really noticed, but you now have a problem with your thin hair blowing around.

    A shorter cut would be better, as it you wouldn't have to worry about the wind, but you don't have to go for a buzzcut. If you get a short scissor cut on top, (this can also cover the temples a bit if you have recession) and get the sides buzzed fairly short the top will look thicker, giving the illusion you have more hair.

    Maybe you could style it into a short quiff? Use dry product, though not brylcream and it might even add the illusion of more density.

    Do you think this could work for you? It would help to see a couple of pics to show us what the situation is.

    Hope this helps,

    Stratofortress

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