I voted “More than five years”. To be honest it is definitely four and a half, but most likely more than five.
Anyway, the reason I grew one is because I screwed my shoulder up. I had always hated shaving, but couldn’t get over the itching, so I’d let it grow and grow until it got too much and then shave. But then I did my shoulder in and not only couldn’t shave but I was put on codeine which masked the itching.
So when I came out the other side I said “I’m keeping this”.
Working as a programmer is awesome. No one cares. Hell, the last time I worse a suit to an interview was my first job in 1997.
When I was in college, I tried a mustache for a while. My GF wanted me to try it & she kept me happy so I did it for a year. When I forgot what I looked like clean shaven, I shaved it off with no regret.
A year or so back, I tried to do the full beard thing because one of my kids wanted to see me in one for Christmas. I did it… but it was the single most horrible facial hair experiance ever and it came off before the tree went out.
I remember the horrible stank so many others I’d worked with had had with their beards, so I was compulsively washing and scrubbing my face 2-3 times a day and again before bed. The thing is, no matter how much I soaped
and no matter how hard I scrubbed, I just Knew that a few hours later, I’d be smelling like one of those chin armpits from the office.
Don’t get me wrong: if you are Keanu Reeves & can make it look THAT good? Fine. Very few can.
Clean shaven & well scrubbed just works better for me.
I’ve had a mustache since leaving boot camp in 1967, and a beard off and on (as allowed by the Navy) for the following 20 years. I retired from the USN in 1990 and have had a full beard ever since. So yeah, facial hair for about the past 48 years.
Went from long hair and beard to bald and goatee. Now bald and mustache and soul patch. Had it more than 5 years.
I have not seen my upper lip since about 19 or so, my chin since maybe 22. I had to shave off the mustache for a job change around 18, not that it was any great accomplishment at the time. But I regrew it after yet another position shift and have never shaved it (or the goatee) off since. So, 30-35 years. How many can honestly say they’ve *never *shaved the keeper parts in that long, even for a wedding or a weekend or a whim?
My Xmas gift to myself in 1984 was to start growing a beard. It should be completely “in” by next week.
I’ve had facial hair for ten years. As soon as the peach fuzz left, I got a goatee-beard-stach thing, occasionally letting it grow. Now I have a full beard. I don’t actually know how I look without it. The last picture of me without facial hair was during puberty. I’ve been thinking of removing the beard and keeping the mustache, but I can’t seem to do it. I’m a bit worried I won’t recognize my own chin.
I first grew my beard somewhere in the neighborhood of 1983 and have only shaved it off three times since then. The first was after hearing my then-girlfriend answer my grandmother’s query about whether or not she liked my beard by saying, “I don’t know, I’ve never seen him without it.” I shaved it off before our next date, apologized profusely, and immediately grew it back. I shaved it off twice more for jobs prior to 1990, but have sported a neatly trimmed beard and mustache since. My grown children have never seen me without facial hair.
My job would keep me from being able to do that anyway.
I grew a moustache in 1966. I shaved it off in June of '67. I started growing it back in August. I have it ever since. The beard I grew in 1981. I met the woman who would become my wife that fall and she said she liked it and I have shaved the beard once since then…for a job interview. It has had many versions of the beard (always with a moustache, though); goatee, full, neatly trimmed and even a pair of mutton chops when I went through my actor stage and I had a long-running part in a period (Victorian) drama. I am now pushing 50 years with some kind of facial hair…I’ll probably keep it.
Other than when I shaved it off for a brief time several years ago just to see what my face looked like without it, I’ve had my current beard and moustache for over 20 years.
I let my facial hair grow during a couple of weeks in between jobs, just for a lark. I was about to shave it all off when my wife insisted that I keep letting it grow. So I did. She still likes it, and I like not having to shave my whole face every day. (I still shave my neck.) So it stays.
I grew a beard as soon as I finished high school, in 1962, and I’ve had one except for brief periods when I shaved it off ever since. I didn’t let it grow in high school, because I assumed that there was an unwritten rule against it. Back then, beards were so unusual that I got my picture in one of the Sunday newspapers in Sydney.
As of this post over 80% of the people who have voted in the poll have at least a year’s worth of “facial hair.” Wonder how we would determine how well that percentage fits the entire Doper Male population…
Is there a better way to phrase the poll to find out?
I had to be clean shaven for boot camp. Other than that, I’ve at least had a mustache.
I wear a goatee during winter, nothing when it’s warm out. I’m a runner and shave my head, so sweat collects in my beard if I have one, which is gross.
I’m almost 45 and have had my van dyke for 17.5 years. I can’t see myself ever shaving it off.
I was suspended from school in like 10th grade for having a beard; my Dad fought it with the school board and won. During High School I shaved at times for a month or two but the hair always made a return. Since say age 20 my chin has seen daylight twice. (I’m pushing 60 now) Last time was about 12 years back and I shaved my whole head. And the neighborhood kids were scared to death of me and the one neighbor called the police to report I had broken into my own home. And since the picture on my license didn’t look like me --------- it took a while to straighten out.
Female here. I’ve always had peach fuzz but some of it turned dark at puberty. Hormone treatments that I was given when I started having problems during peri-menopause made it worse. The cruelty of young men got me started trying to deal with it while in college (funny, it was never an issue when I was a runway model) and I’m still trying to deal with it. Sensitive skin keeps me from trying drastic techniques.
I went with “since I could grow one,” to indicate I’ve had one since before I graduated high school, but I’ve occasionally shaved it off for short periods of time, mostly just to start over.
Most recently, I went down to just a mustache, and may have finally found a mustache that looks okay on me. Still looks like I’m from the 70s, but at least it’s not a “pedo-stache.”