I started to say “beard” but I mean any sort of intentional allowing to grow of hairs below the hairline at the top of the head and above the neck. Include moustache/mustache, goatee, muttonchops and other long sideburns. Ladies may answer if the thing is intended! 
Odd that this thread comes up now. After sporting facial hair for the last 20 years I finally shaved my face clean just last weekend.
I mentioned in the mustache thread that I’m not meant to sport a beard but my wife likes a little stubble on there. So I shave Sunday night/Monday morning and just let it grow during the week and, by the weekend, have it where she likes it (just gotta trim the neck). So my facial hair is a “just this week” thing.
As a younger man, I may have felt inferior for not growing a full facial pelt in six hours but these days I see it as a blessing to spend maybe ten minutes a week shaving and buy razors once every six-eight weeks.
My husband has never been without his mustache since he could grow one. I have never seen him without it.
I grew my first full beard in my 20’s. It may have been for a play I was in at the time. I kept it off and on since then, shaving only when I botched the “trim” on occasions.
I had it when my daughter was born and when she was maybe 6 or so I had one of those misfires when “trimming” and went ahead and shaved it clean off. She looked at me and said, with tears in her eyes, “Where’s my other daddy?” It went right back on! 
I grew a mustache as soon as I graduated from high school when I was 17, and I’ve had it ever since. I grew a beard once I went to college, but had to shave it for work during the summers. The last time I shaved my beard off was in 1977 when I was traveling through Mexico and wanted to look a little less subversive.
When I turned 15 or so my dad lent me a disposable razor.I used it 3 times, decided shaving sucks ass,and never did it again.
I shave once a week to 10 days. Sometimes I’ll stretch it to two weeks. I’ll tidy the edges every couple of days. I sport the unshaven look most of the time. My wife likes it.
Until I was in my '40s, I had square jobs that required a necktie and a daily shave, which I effected with an antique safety razor, a shaving brush, and a bar of Burma-Shave soap in an old Burma-Shave mug.
Twelve years ago I switched to a hippie job and immediately grew my beard out.
I pay a visit to my barber every two months or so, when I start to look like Lon Chaney, Jr., and he gives me a neat trim for about ten bucks. In between visits I use a pair of moustache scissors to keep the 'stache out of the soup.
In about 1995, I started growing one of those scruffy little chin beards that were all the rage in about 1995. :smack: :o
I’ve had facial hair of some sort or another more or less constantly since then. I currently have a full beard, about 3/4" long all around, no mustache, no hipster neckbeard.
I remember when all the other 14-15 year olds were staring to shave and parents etc were making a huge honking deal about shaving being a rite of passage etc. I didn’t want to; I liked the soft downy hairs, they were authentically growing there of their own accord and why was I obliged to scrape them off? My Dad said it looked stupid for someone my age to be “trying to grow a beard”. I didn’t consider myself to be “trying to grow a beard”, I simply wasn’t trying to make my normal young-teenager peach fuzz go away because I didn’t see anything wrong with it.
I’ve had my mustache since around '85 and some sort of a beard for most of that time except for a year when I was on a contract that required that I be able to wear a full face respirator in the event that something nasty sprung a leak.
I grew a beard a couple of times in college (late 80s) but usually only when the weather was cold. In my mid-twenties I grew a goatee. When I got engaged in 2000 my wife told me the goatee was right out and I had to choose between clean-shaven or full beard. I chose beard, which I’ve had continually since except for a few weeks when I lost a bet. 
I usually don’t shave during vacation. I can go about a week before I feel like clawing my face off.
I first grew a beard in 2000, when I was 19 and had just been laid off from a job so didn’t have to shave every day. I’ve shaved it off exactly once since then, in mid-2002 or so. I thought it made me look like I was 14 again, and decided to chuck my razors and just let it grow.
Of course, now it’s starting to turn grey on the sideburns. Also I live in Portland, which is about to reach critical mass with its hipster population. I’ve always eschewed fashion trends and seeing every man under 30 sporting pomade’d pompadours and beards that would make an old-testament prophet proud just makes me want to shave it off.
But my wife likes it, my kids wouldn’t recognize me without it, so for now my house will stay razor-free.
I’ve had facial hair on and off since I was 13. I should have been shaving twice a day since then, but I am lazy as hell when it comes to grooming. So, once a week is probably the average. I can grow a full beard in about two weeks, even though it’s mostly white these days.
So, since it takes no time to grow, I’ve had all manner of outlandish facial hair over the years. Probably the most excessive was a long, fluffy moustache with sideburns that hung down in long ringlets. Alas, my dearest has very little love for my facial hair shenanigans, outside of sideburns. I’ve been lectured about “proper suction” in relation to this matter. She likes the look of the stubble, but I’ve been told “cacti are pretty, too” often enough that I know I need to shave if I’m going to get some lovin’.
So, in the interest of keeping my long time interest interested in having a love life with me, I only have a goatee and some bushy sideburns. It’s the same facial hair arrangement that I had when we first started dating ages ago, and she seems to get along with it. I’ve had this particular beard for a couple of years now, and it seems to have stalled at about 8" long.
Last time I was completely clean-shaven was at Mom’s memorial service. She always preferred me that way.
I’ve had either a beard or moustache since I was 18, except for a few short periods when I shaved completely, usually when I was job hunting.
I think with the exception of boot camp, my husband has had at least a mustache, if not a full fuzzy face, pretty much since he hit puberty. In the 32 years we’ve been together, it’s mostly been a full beard, altho he’s occasionally gone with a van dyke, and for a very brief stint, he had just a mustache. I prefer the full beard - he looks too weird with anything less. But since it’s his face and he has to keep it groomed, I don’t force the issue. However, he just let his latest van dyke go for the full beard and I am happy!
One nice thing about the last ten years is that facial hair (as long as it’s well groomed) is becoming less and less of an impediment to finding a job. The last time I shaved for an interview was 1998.