Facial Hairstory

For the better part of eight years now, I’ve had facial hair. I’m not talking about the ability to grow it, but I have actually had a semi-manicured patch of hair on my face that would count as facial hair. Over the years I’ve had the chin hair, the fu man chu (for one day), the full beard, the goatee, the soul patch, and for one brief night, a simple, straight-out-of-the-80’s porn/child molester mustache. Some have looked better than others, some have looked downright awful, but regardless, for the past 8 years my face has been decorated with some sort of hair concoction.

I’m not sure if I started growing facial hair in the first place out of anything but spite. It wasn’t as though I got a really bad 5 o’clock shadow that required me to shave twice a day. In reality, I used to be able to get away with only shaving every third or even fourth day. So it wasn’t as if I was spending too much money on razors and figured that just by letting my beard grow I’d be able to save a few extra bucks. Maybe it just came down to laziness (as most things do) on my part. Let’s look back at my facial hairstory and see what we can figure out.

In college I would often try growing a goatee, but it usually came in pretty blonde and patchy. Additionally, my girlfriend at the time did not enjoy the scratchiness of it so even if I grew it, it only lasted about a week before I’d shave it off and be baby-faced again. Had I given it enough time to grow in fully, it may have looked differently and been a bit softer, but I never gave it the chance to fully develop.

On top of that, right out of college I got a job at a payroll company that was very strict about appearances. Even though our business was done 100% in the office and over the telephone, all of the men were initially required to wear ties and dress slacks. Additionally, we could not have beards of any sort. My buddy Daryl got away with his mustache (which I was SOOO jealous of), but I knew that I couldn’t pull off the ‘stache, so I had to settle with nothing. So now, I had a girlfriend who didn’t like me with facial hair and a job that said I couldn’t have it. This would not fly.

Eventually, two things happened that altered the course of my facial hairstory forever: 1) the girlfriend and I broke up, and 2) I changed jobs. I had failed to grow with either or those factors so through different measures and with a few years in between, I was free of both of the naysayers and was able to build my facial empire however I so deemed necessary. I had to grow it. People told me that I couldn’t but I would show them. I would grow my facial hair however I damn well pleased and the world was going to like it! Or, maybe they wouldn’t care at all, but I was going to rebel either way.

I had actually started pushing the envelope at my old job by growing a soul patch and claiming that by definition it was not a beard so it was definitely not against the rules, but my boss would give me a look as if to say “I will beat you to within an inch of your life if you make me write you up for this” and I would shave it off. A week or two later it would be back and I’d get the same look. We played this game countless times over about a 6 month period and she won every time. By the way, that boss was awesome and taught me more in my four years at Paychex than I ever learned in four years of college. Thanks Vicky.

Anyway, I had left the girlfriend and then the job and had started growing my chin patch the very second I gave my two week’s notice. That patch stayed on my face for the next few years. It sometimes got unruly as I had a piece of garbage for a hair trimmer and preferred to look like crap rather than to have that monstrosity rip the hair from my face like a gardener rips weeds out of the ground. I would literally bleed sometimes. Profusely. But, being a poor bachelor, I had no money to go out and get a new one, so I suffered. The chin patch is probably one of the most photographed versions of my facial hairstory as it is evident in both my engagement and my wedding pictures. I would have more pictures of other versions but a) I hate being photographed, and b) I really hate being photographed. I’ll give into it for the sake of others but I am NOT photogenic and really, really dislike looking at pictures of myself. If you haven’t figured it out yet, my vanity far surpasses the reality of my appearance and no picture of me (even though it’s probably exactly how I look) ever gets a passing grade in my book. Need an example of my vanity? I’m writing a blog about the history of my facial hair as if anyone on earth besides me could give two craps about it.

But you’re still reading so I’ll carry on…

The chin patch eventually gave way to the goatee which I have been sporting for the past 4 years or so. It started out with me shaving all of my facial hair off for a Napoleon Dynamite costume I wore for Halloween a few years back. The second I shaved off the chin patch, I regretted it. I was glad that I would be wearing a costume that night (and it was an AWESOME costume) because I felt so uncomfortable without my security hairnket (hair + blanket). The following Monday at work, I figured that because I still had a week or so before I could grow it back fully, everyone would notice and make a huge deal about how different I looked without it. Nobody said a word. As the day went on and I got more and more flustered, I finally started laying guilt trips on people who see me multiple times every day but didn’t notice. Oddly enough, no one cared.

After that, I decided to grow the full goatee. I had never had much luck growing a mustache, but I figured I’d give it another shot. When it first came in, my chin hair, which had become accustomed to growing, came in dark but my mustache came in very blonde. It looked very odd at first but eventually came in a little darker and didn’t look half bad. Like the chin patch, I would sometimes let this get very unruly due to my POS hair trimmer, but about this time I purchased an electric clipper for both my quickly receding hair and my goatee. Best $17 I’ve ever spent. I could now have a neatly trimmed goatee and would never have to go to the barber again. Plus, I wouldn’t be forced to cry while my old trimmers pulled out my mustache hairs. That shit hurts!!

I liked the goatee because it could be switched back and forth between a full beard and a goatee with just a few swipes of a razor. The full beard was nice for winter, but once it got hot out, I would have to trim it off. It’s not like I went hunting or ice fishing or logging or anything that would require my face to be warm, but I do have a nice cozy desk job in the city that has a parking garage about four blocks away. That little jaunt can get cold in the winter months if the wind is blowing the right way.

The only time I’ve been without the goatee in the past few years is when I shaved it down to a very pervy pornstar/child molester mustache for an 80’s party in honor of my friend Melissa’s birthday. That thing was creepy. I quickly shaved it off the next morning and went to work the following Monday once again expecting everyone to take notice and make a huge deal about how different I looked without it. Nobody said a word. As before, once the day went on and I got more and more flustered, I finally started laying guilt trips on people who see me multiple times every day but didn’t notice. Oddly enough, once again, no one cared.

This brings me to the climax of this very exciting tale. I’m telling you it’s the climax because it’s a story about my freaking facial hair and if you’re not bored to tears by now, you’ve probably nodded off three or four times. Not that it gets much more exciting from here on out, but the good news is I’m almost done so you at least have that to look forward to.

Looking in the mirror awhile back, I began to notice that my goatee had changed. It was still pretty full (in fact, it was more full than it had ever been), but it was beginning to lighten in some areas. In fact, it was beginning to lighten a LOT in some areas. And when I say lighten, I don’t mean getting blonder from the sun. What I mean is that my beard was turning gray. At first I could trim it down and it wouldn’t be as noticeable, but as time went on, it became more and more evident that something had to be done. I began to think about Just For Men, but even with all of my vanity, it just seemed silly. I wasn’t going to paint my beard just so I would look younger. This wasn’t about looking younger or feeling younger, this was about having a cool looking goatee. Having had the gray for awhile, people were sure to notice the difference and that would make my goatee a laughing stock. I was not going to subject it to that torture, so last Friday I did something that I thought I would never do.

I shaved it all off.

What began as a need to rebel had turned into a comfort zone and ended up as something that had to go. Now, as I sit here on a muggy Monday afternoon, I feel weird. I feel naked. In the past when I shaved I would do so on a Friday or a Saturday afternoon so that when Monday morning came around, I would shave the parts that I wasn’t growing back to have at least an outline of stubble for the look I was going for. Not today. Today, I shaved again this morning and my face is naked to the world. I haven’t seen a ton of people since I did shave, but so far, only one person has noticed and it hasn’t been here at work. I expected that surely, with how dramatic this move was in life, everyone would take notice and make a huge deal about how different I looked without it. As usual, nobody has said a word. I’m sure that once the day goes on and I got more and more flustered, I’ll finally started laying guilt trips on people who see me multiple times every day but haven’t noticed yet. And I’m sure that once again, no one will care.

Oh well.