Boondock
Senior Member
- Reaction score
- 13
Hey chaps,
Don't get me wrong on this post. I'm one of the most miserable sods out there when it comes to hairloss. I've spent days, even whole weeks, panicking, obsessing, thinking my life is over, and generally getting down. I'm not some positive, happy-go-lucky, "it's no big deal" type of preacher. In many ways, I'm making this post to convince myself as much as I'm trying to convince any of you.
But I want to be realistic about this, because I genuinely believe what I'm about to say has some truth in it. When you look at it rationally, hairloss doesn't have to have the major affect on us that it's having. It affects us largely because of our reaction to it, not because of the hairloss itself.
Why do I say this? There are a bunch of reasons:
--- People don't notice it as much as you do. You might think they do, but they're not obsessively scanning each hairline they see. It'll just blend into the overall image of your face, and if it won't make you look better, it certainly won't be the first thing everyone notices about you or the dominant thing they notice about you. Only people with male pattern baldness judge people by their hairlines first, and everything else second, because we have a distorted mindset as a result of our condition.
--- People don't care as much as we think they do. Honestly, there are so many people who couldn't give a damn that you're losing your hair, and really don't think it's much of a big deal.
--- You can still get women. Ever seen a guy with a receding hairline with a hot chick? I have, plenty of times. In fact, plenty of bald guys too. It's also true that Neil Strauss, who a lot of people have heard of, managed to get a crazy number of women despite being bald, short, and skinny. I'm not saying that it won't affect your chances with women, but in and of itself hairloss won't completely destroy your success with women.
--- You can still get a job. It might affect your chances in a job interview, but not by a bigger factor than you can accomodate for. In most professions, people want someone who can do the job best, not someone who has a full head of hair. Is you've got something to offer a company, you'll be fine.
--- It doesn't matter what other people say. People may make comments. In fact, they'll probably be the peope your closest friends with. It's no big deal. If your buddies are making jokes about it, that's because that's what buddies do. It doesn't mean they actually think any less of you, that's just your interpretation of it.
Now I'm not saying that you'll not be affected in any area of your life. I'm just saying it's not the big deal that we think it is. I'd say that, taken together, losing your hair might reduce your chances in career, women, having fun and so on by about 25%. I know it's a bit silly to put a figure on things like this, but let's go with it for a moment.
Now not only is 25% not the end of the world, but you can make it up in other areas. Get a good style, get a tan, work out, develop your social skills, build up your skillset for your next career, work harder, try harder - whatever. It's possible to make most of the deficit back just with other stuff you're doing in your life.
In addition to all of this, there are treatments to slow the loss now, and perhaps in 5-6 years treatments that could replace the loss entirely. Which is awesome, and we're really lucky to have that somewhere on the horizon.
Am I saying that it doesn't matter? Of course not. And does it make precise sense to put percentages to this stuff? Definitely not either.
But what I do think is true, and the point I'm trying to make, is that the extent to which some of us let hairloss affect us has nothing to do with the hairloss in itself. For some of us it takes away 75% of our quality of life. And yet for others in the world, it does no such thing. Why is that?
Ultimately, you've got to change what you can, and define your success not only in terms of how much hair you can retain, but how much you can progress in your life inspite of it. Hairloss is largely out of our control. But how much we let it affect us is something we can take charge of.
Don't get me wrong on this post. I'm one of the most miserable sods out there when it comes to hairloss. I've spent days, even whole weeks, panicking, obsessing, thinking my life is over, and generally getting down. I'm not some positive, happy-go-lucky, "it's no big deal" type of preacher. In many ways, I'm making this post to convince myself as much as I'm trying to convince any of you.
But I want to be realistic about this, because I genuinely believe what I'm about to say has some truth in it. When you look at it rationally, hairloss doesn't have to have the major affect on us that it's having. It affects us largely because of our reaction to it, not because of the hairloss itself.
Why do I say this? There are a bunch of reasons:
--- People don't notice it as much as you do. You might think they do, but they're not obsessively scanning each hairline they see. It'll just blend into the overall image of your face, and if it won't make you look better, it certainly won't be the first thing everyone notices about you or the dominant thing they notice about you. Only people with male pattern baldness judge people by their hairlines first, and everything else second, because we have a distorted mindset as a result of our condition.
--- People don't care as much as we think they do. Honestly, there are so many people who couldn't give a damn that you're losing your hair, and really don't think it's much of a big deal.
--- You can still get women. Ever seen a guy with a receding hairline with a hot chick? I have, plenty of times. In fact, plenty of bald guys too. It's also true that Neil Strauss, who a lot of people have heard of, managed to get a crazy number of women despite being bald, short, and skinny. I'm not saying that it won't affect your chances with women, but in and of itself hairloss won't completely destroy your success with women.
--- You can still get a job. It might affect your chances in a job interview, but not by a bigger factor than you can accomodate for. In most professions, people want someone who can do the job best, not someone who has a full head of hair. Is you've got something to offer a company, you'll be fine.
--- It doesn't matter what other people say. People may make comments. In fact, they'll probably be the peope your closest friends with. It's no big deal. If your buddies are making jokes about it, that's because that's what buddies do. It doesn't mean they actually think any less of you, that's just your interpretation of it.
Now I'm not saying that you'll not be affected in any area of your life. I'm just saying it's not the big deal that we think it is. I'd say that, taken together, losing your hair might reduce your chances in career, women, having fun and so on by about 25%. I know it's a bit silly to put a figure on things like this, but let's go with it for a moment.
Now not only is 25% not the end of the world, but you can make it up in other areas. Get a good style, get a tan, work out, develop your social skills, build up your skillset for your next career, work harder, try harder - whatever. It's possible to make most of the deficit back just with other stuff you're doing in your life.
In addition to all of this, there are treatments to slow the loss now, and perhaps in 5-6 years treatments that could replace the loss entirely. Which is awesome, and we're really lucky to have that somewhere on the horizon.
Am I saying that it doesn't matter? Of course not. And does it make precise sense to put percentages to this stuff? Definitely not either.
But what I do think is true, and the point I'm trying to make, is that the extent to which some of us let hairloss affect us has nothing to do with the hairloss in itself. For some of us it takes away 75% of our quality of life. And yet for others in the world, it does no such thing. Why is that?
Ultimately, you've got to change what you can, and define your success not only in terms of how much hair you can retain, but how much you can progress in your life inspite of it. Hairloss is largely out of our control. But how much we let it affect us is something we can take charge of.
