I already said - it’s your hair, do what you like. Why do you care so much about my opinion?
My problem here, as I also said, is that I do not feel that shaving is the only option, and I do not feel that shaving is an honest option. Yes, it works for some people, but IMHO, it looks terrible on a lot of people, too.
I have much more respect for someone like Will Oldham who doesn’t try to disguise his baldness by shaving his head. But this is an opinion thread in the opinion forum. If your opinion differs, fine. I don’t think it’s unreasonable (or ridiculous) to have an opinion on this matter that differs from the standard one.
Look, I started losing my hair when I was about 20. I tried the combover, various creams and shampoos, and dozens of hairstyles. And I did massive work on my self esteem. But at the end of the day, I always felt like there was something fundamentally flawed about my look. I “suffered” from MPB, and always felt like I was a little less than men who had full heads of hair.
A few years ago I started experimenting with shorter and shorter hairstyles. One day I was getting my hair cut and I told the stylist to shave it all off. I figured that if I didn’t like it, it would just grow out anyway. When she was done, I looked in the mirror, and – Damn, I look goooooood! Not only was I not ashamed of my looks, I was damn sexy! Now I don’t “suffer” anymore, I wear my baldness like a badge. I actually wouldn’t go back to a full head of hair even if I could. After 28 years, I’ve found my look.
And I love it.
If that makes me pretentious, so be it. But anyone who would think that – well, it says more about their psyche than my own.
What, exactly, do you think my opinion says about my psyche?
This is the opinion forum. People have differing opinions. I don’t care for shaved heads, and I dislike the ubiquity of the look. If you feel differently, fine; I don’t really care if people disagree with my opinion. You’re the one getting all upset about a little criticism from a stranger on the internet, and now you’re implying that there’s something wrong with my psyche?
Shakester is indeed being completely ridiculous. It makes about as much sense to say anyone who wears their hair long when balding is pretentiously trying to pretend they’re not balding by steadfastly keeping the same hair style they’ve always had in spite of it looking ridiculous now. Why anyone would ascribe such angry motivations to people based on the way they wear what’s left of their hair is beyond me but it’s pretty stupid.
Are middle-aged who don’t wear skin-tight jeans and mid-riff baring halter tops pretentiously pretending they always wanted to look bad in them?
Shakester doesn’t want to be judged for the choices he makes, and I don’t blame him. But then he – in the same post, mind you – turns around and judges others.
Nobody says you have to like the look. I think we just find it bizarre that you not only dislike the appearance of a shaved head, but think people who choose to wear that look are somehow pretending that they wished they never had hair to begin with. What an odd think to say.
I will never go bald. I will have a full, thick head of hair until I die, even if I live to be 100 years old. I know lots of guys my age who would love to have my hair, because they have little or none, and I endure their glares and hatred every day. Not because I have a head of hair, but because I deliberately and regularly shave it all off.
If there was a pill that would remove ALL body hair, not just on my head, I’d gladly take it.
If I ever looked in the mirror and saw that I was in fact going bald, I’d weep at the realization that someday soon I wouldn’t need clippers or razors ever again. It would be one of the best days of my life.
I think it’s ridiculous how defensive balding men get, considering most women don’t really give a damn how much hair a man has. It’s when you go to great lengths to disguise your hair loss that you look “less than”.
Of course women care what a man’s hair looks like.
And most women do not like the “horseshoe hair” look. Most men do not like the “horseshoe hair” look. It looks bad.
I don’t want to go bald, but if I do cutting all my hair short is the only possible decent look. It isn’t trying to hide hair loss, it is just the best possible look in an unfortunate situation.
A situation made worse by the fact that no matter what you do certain people will assign bizarre motives to you. Perhaps because you don’t want to feel shallow about not liking bald men, so you try to make it their fault?
OT: anyone else ever note just how much Descartes looks like Sean Connery?
On-topic: aren’t there two types of baldness-the one which starts with a spot on the top back of your head, and another where it all starts thinning out up front first? I belong to the latter type: using a jojoba conditioner, which supposedly helps slow things down. Still have most of my hair at age 47.
Actually, I lost it in the front but slightly to either side of the middle. That left a little island of hair right in the middle of my forehead, sort of like a kewpie doll. I love getting out my pretentious razor and shaving that fucker off.
The idea that balding people who shave the lot off, do so to hide the fact they are going bald, doesn’t seem right. Hiding your baldness would surely include adding more hair?
My theory about why men who are at ease with their baldness are attractive to some females - when a good head of hair is supposedly such a good thing - is that because they have got over the Samson Syndrome of losing their crowning glory, they are more assured of themselves as men, and are less affected by cosmetic issues and superficial values.
If you have enough hair left in the right spot, grow a khokol.
FTR, I’ve worn mine closely cropped/shaved most of my life. The thinning at the temples deal doesn’t bother me because I never wore girly-man hair to start with.
Question for the group (for those of you in favor of shaving): How do you know when it’s time to do it? I’m 35 and while I don’t have the full horseshoe, I do have the monk spot in back and receeding battleships in the front. I’ve asked lady friends about my baldness and most of them say it’s not “that bad”. So that implies that it’s noticable, but I don’t know if they are too polite to say, “yes, it looks terrible”.
My problem is that I also have pale skin and freckles on my face, I’m afraid if I go cue ball (or even Dave Attell stubble) the freckled face and bare white head will look strange. On the other hand, I don’t want to be the guy clinging to scraps either.
Personally, I should have done it ten or fifteen years earlier. But back then, it was still kind of associated with a punk or Neo Nazi look, so that wouldn’t have been a great idea.
I guess when you start to worry about it, go for it.
I happen to agree about the defensiveness but I understand it. I think it’s because we’re bombarded with the idea that a full head of hair = manliness/youth/virility/etc. It doesn’t take a lot of Rogaine and Hair Club For Men commercials to put that thought out there, not to mention a few thousand years of precedent (Samson, anyone?). Similar to the unrealistic body images that are pushed on women - plenty of ladies feel like they don’t measure up to an impossible ideal which only exists on the cover of the SI Swimsuit Edition or whatever.
Plus, it’s bound to be unsettling when a part of your body starts falling out. Since hair loss starts affecting many guys when they are pretty young they haven’t gotten used to the fact that things change as they start getting older so that probably doesn’t help much.
A balding guy used to be an easy target for teasing and some of the measures that guys would take to avoid looking like they were losing their hair would have the opposite result - combovers, obvious toupees and stuff like that that just looked bad in that “You are really not fooling anybody” way.
And of course in the 1980s a shaved head was generally synonymous with being a neo-Nazi. So not a lot of attractive options left for guys.
Thankfully things have changed. There are a lot of famous guys who have made bald/shaved heads look good; I’ll pick Denzel Washington, Bruce Willis and Ed Harris as quick examples. It’s fashionable (for those who have the choice) and it’s a sharp-looking way for us balding guys to wear what we’ve got left. It’s not limited to “shave it all off”, just keeping things at a uniform length happens to look nice - for example Larry Miller and Kurtwood Smith have “the horseshoe” (love that term) and they look good with it.
I think that’s partly right, but there can be more to it than that. It’s also taking what’s perceived as a flaw, one that’s never been considered sexy, and totally fucking owning it.
