Standing in the bathroom thirty thousand somewhat feet in the air, I stared at my reflection with shame, disappointment, and fear. As the plane shook, my heart continued to pound, questions flooding my thoughts. I was a young, fit, able bodied twenty-five year-old, but I just become bald, literally overnight. It certainly didn’t help that I was partially disoriented by a complete loss of time as I was traveling from my apartment in Alexandra Headlands, Australia to meet my family in Italy. Three continents, three different time zones, four planes and a bus later, I thought to myself, “Maybe I’m overreacting”. It was my choice after all, to, ‘Bic’ my head only a few days before the trip. After progressing beyond incipient thinning, I panicked and thought perhaps going for a shaved look might help the situation. It began with a little trim, but as it sometimes happens, one can get carried away. Far from being satisfied with a light buzz, I decided to go all in and soon enough I was standing alone with my hair on the floor and a shiny melon left on top. It was shocking to say the least. What the hell did I just do? I look AWFUL! I’m twenty-five! Well, thank goodness for hats. I immediately put on my green cap and wherever I went, so did that lid, hoping I wouldn’t be forced to take it off and risk the potential of public humiliation.
For our first few nights in Italy, we stayed at my late Nonno’s house which had been vacant for a number of years. Well that is if you don’t include the street cats that occasionally dropped in for a night cap. For most of the family, it was an overwhelmingly unpleasant experience due to the smell of cat urine and the haunting presence of being in an ancient, mostly abandoned town in the mountains of Abruzzo. To the contrary, I was so jet lagged that my little cot was an upgrade from the confined airplane seats, so I slept just fine! On our first night, my Nonno even came to me in one of my dreams and in his typical humor said, “How do you like my house baldy?”. Even the dead were mocking my dome!
As the trip progressed and I traveled throughout Italy, something unexpected happened as I walked through the various towns and cities. I was stopped on the street and thanked by random passerby, “Grazie, grazie, militaria, grazie!” At first, I was confused but then realized my shaved head under the green military style cap must have given the impression that I was a serviceman. I could have corrected everyone, but my poor Italian made it difficult, so I just went along with it. Afterall, no one else seemed to be impressed with my baldness.
It’s a strange feeling when you come to the realization that you’re losing your hair. However, a lot of the fear associated with this life changing experience had more to do with how I thought other people would react. Would others make fun of me? If I became single again (which I did), would anyone find me desirable? Why did this have to happen at such a young age? Can’t I get a few more years? It reminded of me of that Seinfeld episode where George examines Elaine’s boyfriend’s head and tells him he’s developing the classic horseshoe pattern, before he offers the advice, “Live Dammit. Live. Every precious moment as if this was the last year of your life. Because in many ways...it is”.
Fortunately, my hair slowly started growing back, but it was much thinner and my flow growing days of Junior “A” and College hockey were certainly over. Let’s just say that rebuilding confidence in relation to my new aesthetic was a work in progress. But it wasn’t until I read, ‘A Fine Balance’ by Rohinton Mistry, that my thinking started to shift. It was one quote in particular that changed my outlook on losing hair:
“Since then I've done lots of jobs. Right now, I'm a hair collector.” "That's good," said Ishvar tentatively. "What do you have to do, as a hair-collector?" "Collect hair." "And there is money in that?" "Oh, very big business. There is a great demand for hair in foreign countries." "What do they do with it?” asked Om, skeptical. "Many different things. Mostly they wear it. Sometimes they paint it in different colours - red, yellow, brown, blue. Foreign women enjoy wearing other people's hair. Men also, especially if they are bald. In foreign countries they fear baldness. They are so rich in foreign countries, they can afford to fear all kinds of silly things.”*
It certainly rang true and hit me in a profound way. I feared baldness. I lived in a foreign country. And I could afford to worry about such silly things.
Another experience also helped me to comprehend the ridiculousness of losing my hair. At the age of twenty-nine, I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Disease - an autoimmune thyroid disorder that came with a number of additional problems too. It’s interesting how frustrating health conditions can make other smaller issues such as balding seem insignificant. All I needed were gastrointestinal disruptions, severe brain fog, bacterial imbalances, sleep difficulties, yeast infections, chronic active Epstein Barr Virus, consistent body aches, pelvic floor dysfunction and joint pain to make the fear associated with baldness evaporate into thin air! Perhaps I was dealing with some of these autoimmune issues earlier than I thought and a round of food poisoning coupled with a nasty flu is what finally compromised my system. Perhaps the heightened immune response in addition to genetics, contributed to my hair loss. Maybe it was all of these factors combined with a stressful career in the entertainment industry that finally did me in. But what I do find quite interesting is that ever since I stopped worrying about my thinning hair five or so years ago, the loss plateaued (although I continue to shave my head so it may not be as noticeable). To clarify, for those of you who might point out my affinity for wearing hats, it’s not because I continue to struggle with my previous insecurities. To the contrary, I’ve always enjoyed wearing hats, even when I had a full head of hair!
There was once a time when I would think about losing my hair every day, multiple times a day, sometimes all day. It consumed my thoughts and triggered unnecessary insecurities. However, over time, these feelings became less frequent and reading that passage from, ‘A Fine Balance’ as well as going through my own health challenges certainly helped. It helped me to realize how privileged I am and how ridiculous it is to worry about losing one’s hair while we are dealing with an war, an environmental crisis, widespread hunger, systemic racism and severe financial inequality throughout the world.
Through the process of losing my hair, I also realized that the only people who make fun of bald men are other insecure men. For some reason, men are obsessed with commenting on other men’s hair. It reminds me of that time I was meeting my wife at a photography studio where she was getting new headshots (She’s an Actor). The photographer had an unusual presence, and as soon as I arrived, insisted on taking my photographs too. After repeatedly saying no, he coerced me into posing for him with my hat off. Upon seeing I was losing my hair, he asked me when I started, “Becoming a man”. Confused and unsure of what that meant, he removed his own hat to show me he was bald, an indication of what becoming a man truly is in his world. While not exactly making fun of me, I was forced into an uncomfortable position in front of the camera, one in which the dialog revolved around you guessed it, my lack of hair! I hate to think of what kind of insecurity I might have triggered in him if I had a full head of hair!
I’ve never come across a woman who has made fun of a man for being bald or treated him poorly because he doesn’t have enough hair, but men seem to have no problem pointing out another man’s hair loss. Where do we get off commenting on other people’s bodies in the first place? Does it stem from the fear of losing one’s hair or a feeling of inadequacy? Does anyone make fun of Bruce Willis, Michael Jordan, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Mike Tyson, Samuel L. Jackson or Mark Messier? What about Kelly Slater, Stanley Tucci, or Howie Mandel?
I chose to write this article because I am seeing more and more women on social media proudly showing their bodies in their natural states: displaying cellulite, swelling, scars, and any kind of socially deemed, ‘Imperfection’ in an attempt to normalize all bodies, not just the ones that are digitally altered or viewed as, ‘Perfect’ by societies’ standards. This honest reflection is essential and needed now more than ever, especially when we are bombarded by advertisements and influencers that can have the opposite effect on true body positivity. However, I don’t see as many voices normalizing male bodies. Instead, I see articles on how to combat baldness, how to spend more time combing, oiling and creaming your beard and how to obtain that perfect gym rat physique. But can you blame men for obsessing over the fear of losing their hair when we are inundated by advertisements telling us how to solve the, “Problem” and that we no longer have to suffer such embarrassment? Society has created a toxic culture surrounding beauty, dictating how we should feel about what we physically have or don’t have. While we can’t change these attitudes overnight, what we can do is create our own positive narratives. But even the stories we tell ourselves have a greater propensity to lean in a certain direction depending on the environment we live in and the company we keep.
There is no denying that confidence, professional aspirations and dating prospects are all drastically impacted by male pattern baldness. And while the familiar names I mentioned earlier may be bald or losing their hair, some of them have other physical attributes that help to make hair loss look more, “Socially acceptable”, not to mention the benefit of their notoriety. Not everyone can have the pipes of a Dwayne Johnson, the olive skin of a Stanley Tucci (which often helps to hide the noticeable U-Shaped hair that remains), or even a nice shaped dome of a Howie Mandel. For some, it’s impossible to decipher if they are truly bald or voluntarily choosing to shave. Every man has a different shape to their head, a different color to their skin and varying textures to their scalp. And despite how smooth, rough, dark, light, or shiny these differences may be, they are what makes every man beautiful in their own way. If you’re losing your hair or already bald and insecure about this change, remember that your look is unique, and no one else has your identical physical attributes. Rather than assuming your good days are numbered, maybe try a different approach, one that embraces change and signals the beginning of a confident new you! As Larry David says, “Anyone can be confident with a full head of hair. But a confident bald man – there’s your diamond in the rough.”
*Mistry, Rohinton. A Fine Balance. McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1997.