Yup, it's dead simple; the younger and the more aggressively you bald the worse it is. The younger you are the rarer baldness will be amongst your peers and the more you will stand out in a negative light. As a young bald guy you lose a lot if not most of the tailwind that you need to build up a proper base of sexual and social experience, and to start a successful career. When you bald later in life you will hopefully have gotten these things in order so the impact is much lesser. You are getting a knock to your confidence and your life quality, but at least you are on stable ground.
Frankly it's insulting when early-thirties NW2s and guys with recession in their forties show up and go "hey I'm suffering too you know!" Have some f*****g empathy and self-awareness for Christ's sake.
It's good to see this from someone around my age, because for me it's totally obvious but some guys still insist that balding at any age is equally as difficult (and some even say it's HARDER, f*** those guys).
But although it's obvious to me, you put it perfectly. Especially the part about having a lot of your life sorted out by the time your baldness has set in.
If you're young and have no financial security, career, and no hair, it's difficult for things to come together. When you hold such social anxiety over your looks it must be f*****g hard to pick yourself up daily and behave like a normal guy in the workplace, socially, etc.
Recently I had a day out at the beach and rollercoasters with a group of friends and mixed with some of their family/parents, was a great day topped off with a meal- but for some f*****g reason at the late evening dinner I stupidly picked a seat that was right under incredibly harsh lighting. It was the only one was well, there was like 10 chairs all with dull enough lighting, and then there was me with my diffusing right in the middle of it.
I kept thinking how sh*t it is that this is ruining the end of a great fun day and how much balding sucks, but at the same time I thought about how my baldness is being exposed right now, but imagine if it was
always like this. Like being NW4 at age 22, and how that would have effected the way I socialise and enjoy my life, I'd probably never leave the house.
I still encourage young baldites that they should definitely leave the house, and their balding problems can never be seen as worse from others, as we view it ourselves.
But damn, if you're the type of self-conscious person that I am, and plenty of people on this forum are, then such a social crutch must be f*****g horrific.