My immediate family has been graciously supportive of my efforts in the conception of this blog and my opening posts. This support has extended to suggesting future topics to discuss in The 50 Plus Male. During a conversation with my mother today, she broached the subject of baldness, an idea no doubt buoyed by the way her eyes inevitably drift up to my, shall we say, “less than hirsute head” wheneve
r she visits.
I began to lose my hair in my late thirties. There were clues leading to this: my maternal grandfather was semi-bald and while I had a full Afro in college, my hair was wiry and on the thin side. The good news, I suppose, is that the loss began and ended quickly. The sides and back of my head are still full; it’s the top that has the vacancy sign flashing…we’re only 20% full…OK, maybe 15%!
Oddly enough, the way I get my hair cut has been all the rage the past couple of years for men with my “condition.” I keep my remaining hair extremely short, as in military-style short. Having long ago abandoned the need for my barber to use scissors when cutting my hair, the instrument of choice is now solely the electric clippers. Clippers can do varying amounts of damage shearing depending on whether you get cut with just the bare-bones clippers or also use the snap-on attachments all of us MPB ( male-pattern baldness) guys know as #1, 2, 3 or 4. Use of the clippers without any attachment leaves your hair the shortest, while use of the clippers with an attachment leaves your hair progressively longer as the attachment # increases.
I used to get my entire head cut using the #2 attachment, a practice that went on for a couple of years. On a whim, I tried a haircut one day with the #1 and stuck with that for most of the past 10-12 years. After seeing a number of MPB guys wearing their hair even shorter than me, I took the bold leap to getting cut without any attachment, just my skin and the clippers coming together for an eventful meeting. After the initial shock of seeing me with a haircut “just this side” of the Bruce Willis look, my wife and family/friends strongly suggested going back to using the #1 for future cuts. There was one problem with this unanimous request; I absolutely loved the new look, and continued with it until this past February.
That’s when I started going to a barber in my neighborhood (author’s note: the 50 plus male’s relationship with his barber will be the subject of a future post) and he suggested getting a #1 on top and gradually fading to a 0 (as in bare-bones clippers) on the sides and back, since this would look like a more professional haircut. This has become the de rigueur look. I’m not going as far to say that my wife is placated, but she has stopped calling me “Bruce.”
-Neal
