My Beard

I have always thought that beards look ridiculous and could never understand why anyone would want to grow one. However, a couple of months ago I took advantage of a three-week break from work to let myself 'go natural' (as I called it at the time). Basically I didn't bother shaving.

I did it partly out of pure laziness, but also partly to see what would happen. I've never had very even stubble, and whenever I've let myself 'go natural' for more than a few days before I've ended up with thick clumps of hair either side of my chin, and nothing much anywhere else.

A couple of weeks into my experiment I was starting to look pretty ridiculous. My neck was covered in hair and the two mounds either side of my chin were getting pretty huge, but above my top lip there was little more than a thin layer of asbo bum fluff. I realised that I needed to make the decision to either shave it all off, or shave my neck and trim my chin mounds to give the rest of my beard a chance to catch up. Well, perhaps because I still had another week off work I decided to do the latter, and the very act made the whole thing official. No longer could I say that I was simply 'going natural'. There was no denying it. I was growing a beard.

I think the main reason I decided to keep going with it is that I had grown fond of stroking my chin. One of the few memories I have of my psychology degree is that in any textbook about any pioneer of psychology, there is always a picture of the said psychologist in the front of the book looking pensive, and they all had beards. I'm not saying that just by growing a beard I will follow in the footsteps of Sigmund Freud or William James, but perhaps I will develop an air of intelligence and maturity, which can't be a bad thing.

Anyway, I can't deny that I was slightly nervous about my first day back at work. As I arrived one of the patients saw me coming round the corner and instantly burst into hysterical laughter. Once she had finally caught her breath, still laughing she told me that she thought I was a giant ape coming to attack her, and then spent the rest of the day doing monkey impressions whenever she saw me. By the second time, the joke had really worn very thin, and I took little comfort in the fact that her ridiculing of me may at least have been therapeutic for her in some way. The staff weren't actually too bad, although I did hear the "let's have a whip-round and buy the man a razor" joke at least a couple of times.

The following Saturday my beard received it's first major endorsement when I went into Town for the first time since it's conception to see the Herbaliser. Firstly, I gained a lot of respect from some of my friends who had seen it for the first time and made no secret of the fact that they had beard-envy. Secondly, and perhaps more significantly, I pulled some young fitty in the club (when I say young, I did feel the need to request an 'age-check' from friends, but thankfully they all thought she looked about 20). Maybe she thought I had an air of intelligence and maturity...

The other positive thing I have found is that my beard is a great conversation starter. On the night of Jonny & H's leaving party it's pretty much all I chatted about all night. This was undoubtedly perpetuated by the fact that I kept bumping into people I hadn't seen for a while so they would always comment on it, but believe me chatting about beards seems to have a lot of mileage (as this epic blog entry clearly verifies). I had quite a few people owning up to having beard-envy (men mostly), just about everyone asking if it itches (which it doesn't), and others commenting that I looked a bit like Ewan McGregor as Obi Wan Kenobi, albeit a slightly less attractive version (they added). Others noticed that I had neatly shaved my cheeks that evening (a little too neatly), and so spent the whole evening shouting can I have a rewind? whenever they passed.

That's the other thing about having a beard...they're a lot higher maintenance than I had expected. They regularly need to be trimmed and groomed, especially when they grow as unevenly as mine. If I allowed mine to grow naturally I'd probably end up with one of those long split beards either side of my chin like some kind of shaolin master.

Anyway, when I made that decision two months ago to shave my neck and keep the beard, it was only ever supposed to be a temporary thing. I figured that I might as well have a beard at some point in my life so I can look back at photos and laugh, and I always planned to shave it off before going to Egypt at Easter. The trouble is that I have really grown quite attached to it. I'll be flying to Egypt in three weeks, and if I don't shave it off before I go then I'll have no choice but to keep it for the whole of the summer (nothing worse than a beard tan-line). I'm in a real quandary.

I have provided before and after mug shots for your amusement, but I would value any constructive comments you might have about the way forward. Unfortunately it's not really a fair comparison as I am two years younger with significantly less pasty-white skin in the 'pre-beard' photo, but it was the only one I could find. At least I have done my best to mimic my relaxed facial expression...



Babyface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Intelligence & Maturity