The hair loss had started well before we began dating. Although I met my husband when we were 10 and he still had a full head, by the time we re-met in our 20s, it was already disappearing. It bothered him a lot.
Losing one's hair at 40 is depressing. At 22? It just seems like some kind of cosmic cruelty. And yet I didn't care. At first.
Every man in my family — my dad, my uncles on both sides, both grandfathers — is bald. I thought hair loss was just part of being a man.
I had no idea how much it really bothered (some) men and how much it would come to bother me. For my husband, it was a sore point. I could have told him he gained weight, that he had food stuck in his teeth, or that he was dressed badly, but if I knocked his hair (or lack thereof), all bets were off.
I know he's not alone.
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Hair loss is a source of shame for many men, not just my husband. There are entire industries built on it. Hair replacement, hair pieces, medications designed to combat it. It's bad.
I get it. God help the woman who experiences hair loss! Not one man in my family has been held back from success because he was bald, but a lack of confidence is really unattractive. The more my husband complained about his hair, the more it bothered me, too.
I never found my husband any less attractive than any of the men I dated with full heads of hair. If anything, he was so much more. Sure, he was balding, but he was also 6'2" (something that is a lot more important to me), in good shape, and very handsome. But his attempts to deal with his hair, ironically, made him less attractive than he really was.
Did he try to get good cuts and pretend like it wasn't thinning? Or did he just shave the whole thing? When it got too long, it looked bad, often flopping in unflattering positions or making it obvious he was trying to "cover" his bald spots with poorly positioned comb-overs.
I told him to accept reality, shave it, and just be at peace. He's got a great face, height, and trim frame on his side. He'd look incredible. But he wouldn't hear of it.
"I look 10 years older than I am," he would complain at 30 when I got carded at bars while the bartender happily took his drink order. It made him self-conscious and willing to spend too much on silly shampoos and other gimmicks promising to help.
It started to bother me, too. I thought it was just his hair. But I was wrong. It was something else.
About four years ago, he gave up. He stopped complaining, bought a good razor, and started buzzing it down. "I'm done caring," he told me.
Then something funny happened.
His decision about his hair coincided with some changes at his work and he was able to move himself into a position of leadership. It was a job most men in his field don't even imagine getting promoted to until they are well into their 40s. He was 33.
"My hair worked in my favor," he joked.
He had a point. Looking older had its benefits.
Like magic, he'd stopped worrying about it. He started carrying himself better, dressing better, and shaving his hair once or twice a week. He looked good. Really good. He was balder than ever and he didn't care. Suddenly, neither did I again.
It was never the hair (or lack of hair) that bothered me, actually. It was the way it bothered him, sapping him of sexy confidence and making me feel the same way he did about it. When that improved, everything else did, too.
At 37, he looks better than he ever looked at 22 and has more confidence than he did back then, too. He's since jumped up even higher at work and transferred to a new company where he is thriving and loving what he does.
Was it the hair that did it for him? We'll never know. But I wouldn't trade his bald head for thick locks any day. And now, I'm pretty sure, neither would he.
Did your man go bald? Did you care?
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