I may be balding but I haven’t lost any hair. It just decided to move from my head down to my ass while dropping hair seeds along the way.
Thanks to Drew Carey for that one
Age 49 with male pattern baldness. Didn’t bother me a bit. And I remember the first time that I really notice I was going bald.
Back in the mid 80’s, (and my mid 20’s, I was going through security at an airport. O’hare I think. I looked up at the closed circuit TV and saw some bald guy wearing the same exact style jacket that I had on. I started to look around to see the guy wearing my jacket. After about 10 seconds, :smack: I realized that bald guy was me
And for the record, the bald gene did not come from the female side of my family. Every male cousin on my mothers side (all she has sisters) has a full head of hair, as did her father. Every male cousin on my father’s side is bald. Dad and all five of his brother are (were) bald.
I wouldn’t quite liken it to getting fat, although baldness is normally associated with older men who are more likely to be fat. Truth be told though, as a bald man I’m probably biased. If you go bald early in life, you’re just a young bald man. I consider myself fortunate to have been that rather than fat at any age.
As for me, given the kind of hair I had, it was no great–ahem–loss.
Usually it’s so gradual you don’t think of it.
I think this is so true. Here in the land of aging hippies, there are plenty of men for whom having long hair is their badge, their social ID, so you see lots of long long fringes around a shiny bald dome. IMHO that is one of the most unattractive ways for a man to wear hair. But maybe their aging hippie wives (or “old ladies”) find it attractive.
When I started going bald - early thirties, I suppose - I noticed first that I had to wear hats outdoors most of the time. Where I live it rains a lot and I noticed that my scalp got wet as soon as I walked out in the rain. I got used to wearing hats, and look good in them, so I wear them always if I go out.
What jars me is when I see a photo of myself and realize how bald I really am. When I look in the mirror I see the top of my head edge-on, so the fuzz on top of my head looks thicker than it is seen from the side or back or (Og forbid) directly above.
Two of my best friends started going bald when we were about 14. No joke. One thinning, one receding. They were absolutely obsessed with baldness for years and years. They’re starting to show very subtle signs of beginning to come to terms with it, but to this day I’ve barely caught a glimpse of them without a hat on since middle school. Both of them have literally gotten into fist-fights over people snatching their hats off their heads. They have sex with their hats on. They sleep with their hats on. One swears he showers with his hat on, and I kind of believe him. I always thought they were nuts for being so fixated on it; I didn’t get it at all. Just did not see what the big deal was. We’re all 29 now and I kind of get it.
Yeah, it would upset me to lose my hair.
Preach it. The man in the mirror says I got hair; the camera shows him to be a damned stone-faced liar.
This thread would be most relevant if the people responding we just as you described.
Find a message board with 20 year old guys who were studs in high school, and if you find one who is losing their hair rapidly, the answers will be different.
For example, go into Game Room here and ask if having WoW, Dungeons and Dragons and all other RPGs banned and destroyed would affect anyone emotionally. Then go over to Maxim and ask the same thing.
This doesn’t make any sense. People think about gradual things regularly. People gain weight gradually, and yet numerous people spend a great deal of time thinking about their weight. People age gradually, and yet many people regularly think about getting older and what that means for them.
I think I could always go bald without any trauma. I like myself better with a hairless pate, so it would be a relief not to have to shave. Contrariwise, my two brothers both like full heads of hair and have some self-esteem bound up in having it.
Proving that God has a sick sense of humor, they are both balding while I am not.
It was annoying when I noticed it, and I’d rather it didn’t happen, but it really doesn’t affect me on a profound level. Now I just keep my hair buzzed or shaved. I had awesome hair in the day, though 
My hair started thinning in college. I’m now 42, and pretty much bald.
Never bothered me in the least.
One a month I go to the barber on base and have her shave it all off. It’s great… I don’t worry about it, and never have to mess with it.
My hair started to thin out in my early 20s and it bothered me a bit for a while. I even tried the Rogaine route to try to reverse the process, but it didn’t do much good. After a while I just figured that I shouldn’t fight the inevitable and cut off my long hair and set the trimmers on their lowest setting and go to town.
I can’t say that being bald bothers me at all now except on extremely hot or cold days – and I’ve got a couple of hats for just those occasions.
Mine started to seriously recede in my late 20’s. Didn’t care at all. I’ve been happily bald for the last 40 years.
Only problem is sunburn and overheating without a hat.
I’m not bald. Although I prefer to have hair. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t bother me if I did go bald. My sister on the other hand went through a stressfull time and started getting bald patches some of them pretty big. She took it pretty hard. Her hair grew back though.
Let me put it this way–I was way too young to feel old when I went bald, so I didn’t make the equation “bald=old”. Sure, there have been moments when I wished I weren’t bald, but then nearly everyone has moments when they wish they were different in some aspect from what they actually are. As I noted upthread, I didn’t have great hair to begin with, not at any time in my life. So if I do wish I had hair it’s more a case of wishing I’d had good hair to begin with, and that I’d kept some of it. I wouldn’t want back the hair I actually did have.
I’m 25 and I just started noticing my hair thinning maybe 4 months ago or so. I’d say for a few weeks I was upset about it, but I got over that. I’d rather not be bald, but if I do lose the hair on top I’ll just buzz the rest short and live with it. It’s not that big of a deal.
I kinda thinned a bit on top in my mid thirties, but at that time as I was always working away either offshore or in the desert away from Hairdressers I had opted to give myself a number two all over. I have kept that style so maybe need to skip a few home clipper sessions to see how my hair grows now
What does bother me more is the ridiculous amount of hair that rapidly sprouts out of my ears, eyebrows and nose as I get older!!
Sonomabitch!!
I am an old fart but I am a lucky old fart because I hardly have a receding hairline. However I have noticed two things about us old farts - if you pay attention nearly all of us are going bald (males) and virtually everyone wears glasses. When I was younger I never noticed either thing. They are so ubiquitous that neither of them means anything at all.
I think it all comes down to the individual. In my mid 20’s I was shocked to see a photo that happened to catch the top of my head. There was a fairly noticeable patch of no hair. In my early 30’s my hair style began to look like a comb-over even though that wasn’t my intent.
Like a few other posters, I bought some clippers and cut it short (1/4" or so). I’ve been quite happy with it. It’s cheap. I can do it myself. It dries faster after I swim (instantly really), and doesn’t get messed up when I ride the bicycle to work. I wish I had done it earlier. I’ve never even been tempted by hair regeneration drugs or any of that.
My 20 year high school reunion is this year. I wonder what folks will think!
It sucked when I was going for glasses and through a series of mirrors saw this guy with a badly sunburned bald spot. I said to myself, “Wow! That guy’s head must hurt! I wonder where he is,” and turned a little. And I saw the bald spot move. So I lifted my hand and waved it over the back of my head.
And I was a little taken aback. What scarred me was when I was walking in to work, and I realized I could her snow hitting my scalp.