I’m not capable of growing a beard, all I get on my cheeks & chin is spotty stubble.
I’ve dated guys with and without beards. It totally depends on the guy, and on the beard. If it suits him, and if he doesn’t let it get too scraggly, no problem. I ran into my most recent ex a while back, and he’d shaved off his beard – I almost didn’t recognize him. I liked him better with the beard.
My dad, however, is in denial that he looks absolutely ridiculous with a beard. It’s one of the few issues on which my stepmom and I are in agreement. It makes him look like his face has no shape, and it makes him look even older than his rapidly whitening and receding hair makes him look.
However, I have yet to meet a guy who didn’t look ridiculous with a beard, but no moustache.
I like my husband’s full beard. It’s soft and fuzzy. No beard burn on me - anywhere. And, yes, it does tickle my thighs.
I had one in grad school. It was too hard to maintain, and too wiry (looked like pubes to me). Then I had a moustache for a few years, but it looked a little ragged on the top, and I could never get a smooth line. So I gave up.
I have a full beard, trimmed short. I shave my throat every few days. I’ve worn it this way for over 20 years now, and I’m sure I would look very strange to my friends if it were to vanish.
I’m currently a devout bachelor, but any time I’ve been in a relationship I use conditioner so my beard is nice and soft against sensitive skin.
Female. Sometimes.
DangerDad grows a beard every winter. He can grow a great beard, and I like it on him. Then I like it when he shaves it off. Variety is the spice of life, right?
My dad has a beard. He shaved it off once, when I was about seven. I didn’t recognized him and screamed when he tried to come near me. I wouldn’t look at him until it started to grow back.
I don’t really like facial hair that much, but most of the guys I know (teenagers) either don’t have any, or only have that scruffy “high school mustache,” which doesn’t look good on anyone.
I’ve had a beard since I left school. I have occasionally shaved it off, and thought “hey… I’m cute…” but generally it comes back pretty quickly. It’s just who I am, I don’t feel like me without it. And I look about nine. When embarking upon our species’ long and elaborate mating rituals, obviously I shaved it off, because I had to compete with the fashionable. But back in the Real World, beards are natural. It seems strange to me that people consider one to “wear” a beard.
Trouble is, my hair grows appallingly fast, so I go to sleep like Blackadder II and wake up like Brian Blessed.
Female here: I LOVE beards!!
I’m not big on facial hair, but Dave grew a not-shaving-for-a-week thing, and then shaved it into a goatee. I like it.
I have had a full beard for as long as I have been able to grow one (1971?). I can only remember shaving it all off twice, and both times I let it grow right back. The first time was back in the mid-seventies, my SO wanted to see what I really looked like, the second time was earlier this year because I wanted to see what I really look like. I usually keep it trimmed up fairly short. I have let it grow out to a “mini-Santa” a couple times though.
Male. I have a beard.
My wife likes it and wouldn’t want me to shave it off.
I’ve had facial hair for over thirty years now, mostly a full beard, but occasionally a goatee like I have now. When I was younger I didn’t like the look of hair on just my upper lip and chin so kept it full and as long as it would get, which wasn’t very long (I always wanted a beard like the ZZ Top guitarists). I had long hair along with the beard. It didn’t grow too much past shoulder length either.
Now that I’m older, I’ve cleaned up my act some and during this past year, I cut my hair and trimmed my beard to a goatee.
I think full, well-groomed beards are sexy. I’m definitely not a fan of those pencil-thin jawline ‘beards’. Goatees look alright on some guys, but look best with an accompanying moustache.
As for personal experience, leenmi grows a beard once or twice a year, and I’m always disappointed when he decides it’s time to shave.
Male, bearded.
I’ve had a moustache for 40 years. The beard comes and goes. Right now, it is a goatee/shaved head combo.
Male, Bearded, hate to shave. Shaved last for my 20th High school Reunion. Don’t ask why. Any one else have a little trimmers? Mine came with guides and instructions. Why they wasted the paper is beyond me.
I’ve been experimenting with facial hair since high school. It’s been kind of a long process…
I never really shaved my upper lip, but I couldn’t do much more than a smudge on my chin junior year. Shaved that off for a while in the hope that shaving would encourage it to grow better. Had a beard thing and moustache as a senior, with no connectors. I shaved it off in January for a play, and that was the last time I did that. When I grew it back, I let it grow downward for a while, and nobody could convince me of how bad this looked. Because it hurt to get the long hairs caught in a razor, I inadvertently let it keep getting wider and wider. (None of this would have ever happened if I could grow a normal goatee entirely on my chin, but I can’t.) A female friend made me decide to thin it back down again. My mother became convinced after September 11th that the off-the-chin beard would make airport security nervous, since I had to fly back to college a few days later. So that became your standard variety goatee, and I grew the connectors in a bit later. I don’t let it grow onto my neck anymore. That’s how it’s looked for the last three years, unchanged - and not gonna change. Fortunately, Stardust likes it. It’s soft, which helps.
I’m kind of ambivalent about them. I think that some men do look better with facial hair than without, but I’m generally attracted to smooth-shaven men, and didn’t like it at all when my (then) fiance surprised me with a mustache after we had been apart for a few weeks.
I do make some exceptions, though:
I have a goatee & mustache now; I usually do something like Bruce Daddy’s ritual except I grow my full beard out for a couple of weeks, shave down the sides, and then wear the goatee for a couple months. Then start over. I don’t look great with a goatee, but I look even worse with a full beard, and I hate shaving. I only shave at all about twice a week (one of the few advantages of working in videogames).
And not that anybody asked, but I like them a lot on other guys. The goatee-with-no-mustache thing in particular (although I look like a total doofus when I try it myself).
Well, I have met him, and I don’t recall him being particularly stinky… 
My sweetie has a full beard. He had a very short-term job in a chocolate factory (not as cool as it sounds) when he was required to shave. I’m glad that was a short term job… He’s shaved to a goatee a few times, but I think he looks best with a closely-trimmed full beard. It’s very gray now - last week at breakfast, the server asked if he was eligible for the senior discount. He’s 47! hehehe