- Reaction score
- 11,938
A moment that changed me: lashing out at the woman who laughed at my joke, smiled at the newly hairy me
By Steve Huckster
It was July 2014, Nashville Tennessee. I was at the pub making a joke, when the woman behind me heard my joke, laughed, and smiled at me. With that act of bonding, something inside me snapped and I flew into a blind rage. I began screaming at her at the top of my lungs.
“No, you can't laugh at my joke! You wouldn’t have laughed last year, so you damn sure can’t laugh now!” I scowled and stormed away, completely enraged.
It was the third time that week that a woman had treated me like a person. First a woman had pinched my tricep at bar, and then there was the kind woman who agreed to give me directions, and now this lady with the laughter.
I know all this might leave you wondering if I had had a rough week, or a fight with my girlfriend or was in a terrible mood that had prompted me to lose my temper like that. The truth is more complicated.
Two years before this, in July 2012, I was a norwood 6, which roughly translates into being involountary celibate. I was shiny, and had been since my late teens. I grew up a happy kid, was an oblivious teenager, an mildly old-ish looking young adult, and by my mid-30s I was a chromedome.
But that summer I my scalp was slick, only 16 hairs left. As I sit here today, following a transplant and propecia, I’m literally feeling a third of the sunlight on my face I used to. I am a normal-looking man who wears normal-looking clothes. And, I am happy to report, I am also a fairly happy, confident person.
But that day I had just begun experimenting with regular haircuts, and I was not confident. I was uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable with the attention my new face was receiving, I was uncomfortable about new social circles, and I was uncomfortable with the unexpected boost to my career.
I was uncomfortable but I didn’t know why. Everything seemed to be going so well. I should have been happy, but I wasn’t. And it wasn’t until I saw that woman react positively to my joke – and it pissed me off.
The idea that the amount of hair gel I wear had anything to do with human relations was heartbreaking to me.
I had been disregarded, overlooked and ignored because of my forehead for so long that I didn’t even realise it until people started being nice to me – until, in other words, I was “normally haired”. No one had ever done those things for me before.
She laughed at my joke because I wasn’t physically offensive to her, and I knew. And it was in that moment that I realised how terrible we are as a society to people, based solely on their appearance. This realisation broke me. It broke me in a way that I’ve never been broken before. She certainly didn’t deserve my outburst, but in that moment I couldn’t help myself.
The idea that my haircut had had anything to do with simple human contact was heartbreaking to me. Never mind women actually agreeing to date me, career advances, better opportunities and much cheaper sex (Prostitutes can be expensive in this world).
Under every hat I have ever owned, I have been the exact same person; with the same thoughts, abilities, talents, intellect and heart. I didn’t just magically become smart, funny, talented and pretty when I could take of my hat. I’ve been in here the whole time. But very few took the time to see me.
And when that realisation came, I grieved for the young man I had been and all he had been deprived of. I grieved for what experiencing that would do to my current self. And I grieved for all of the people who may have missed her along the way because they were too blind to see him. In that moment of grief, I lashed out at a perfectly agreeable stranger.
That moment changed every single thing about me. It has now become my life’s mission to help people realise their true beauty and strength; right now, in the fur that heats them, this second. I’m a photographer and video producer, and it completely changed the way I shoot my clients, as well as prompting me to launch a second career, writing and speaking publicly, so that hopefully I can change the way we all perceive beauty.
I love my head the way it reflects light now. I love the way I look and feel, and the freedom it gives me. I can feel the wind a little less. I actually love applying shampoo. I love that there's a point. My boobs might be bigger from the propecia, whatever – I have hair and that's what matters.
But the thing is, I was amazing when I was bald too. That man had the strength to become this man. That man had the courage to leave home at 26 years old in search of a new life. He had the passion to pursue a career in the arts and actually succeed. And he had a big enough heart to not notice that people were mean to him along the way.
People are my business, and I’ve learned a lot about them over the years. I’ve learned that I’ve never met one that wasn’t stunning. No matter what they looked like or what they weighed. I’ve never seen a face or body that I couldn’t find beauty in or a person who didn’t possess compassion, humour and love.
Honestly, people are amazing. You just have to really see them.
By Steve Huckster
It was July 2014, Nashville Tennessee. I was at the pub making a joke, when the woman behind me heard my joke, laughed, and smiled at me. With that act of bonding, something inside me snapped and I flew into a blind rage. I began screaming at her at the top of my lungs.
“No, you can't laugh at my joke! You wouldn’t have laughed last year, so you damn sure can’t laugh now!” I scowled and stormed away, completely enraged.
It was the third time that week that a woman had treated me like a person. First a woman had pinched my tricep at bar, and then there was the kind woman who agreed to give me directions, and now this lady with the laughter.
I know all this might leave you wondering if I had had a rough week, or a fight with my girlfriend or was in a terrible mood that had prompted me to lose my temper like that. The truth is more complicated.
Two years before this, in July 2012, I was a norwood 6, which roughly translates into being involountary celibate. I was shiny, and had been since my late teens. I grew up a happy kid, was an oblivious teenager, an mildly old-ish looking young adult, and by my mid-30s I was a chromedome.
But that summer I my scalp was slick, only 16 hairs left. As I sit here today, following a transplant and propecia, I’m literally feeling a third of the sunlight on my face I used to. I am a normal-looking man who wears normal-looking clothes. And, I am happy to report, I am also a fairly happy, confident person.
But that day I had just begun experimenting with regular haircuts, and I was not confident. I was uncomfortable. I was uncomfortable with the attention my new face was receiving, I was uncomfortable about new social circles, and I was uncomfortable with the unexpected boost to my career.
I was uncomfortable but I didn’t know why. Everything seemed to be going so well. I should have been happy, but I wasn’t. And it wasn’t until I saw that woman react positively to my joke – and it pissed me off.
The idea that the amount of hair gel I wear had anything to do with human relations was heartbreaking to me.
I had been disregarded, overlooked and ignored because of my forehead for so long that I didn’t even realise it until people started being nice to me – until, in other words, I was “normally haired”. No one had ever done those things for me before.
She laughed at my joke because I wasn’t physically offensive to her, and I knew. And it was in that moment that I realised how terrible we are as a society to people, based solely on their appearance. This realisation broke me. It broke me in a way that I’ve never been broken before. She certainly didn’t deserve my outburst, but in that moment I couldn’t help myself.
The idea that my haircut had had anything to do with simple human contact was heartbreaking to me. Never mind women actually agreeing to date me, career advances, better opportunities and much cheaper sex (Prostitutes can be expensive in this world).
Under every hat I have ever owned, I have been the exact same person; with the same thoughts, abilities, talents, intellect and heart. I didn’t just magically become smart, funny, talented and pretty when I could take of my hat. I’ve been in here the whole time. But very few took the time to see me.
And when that realisation came, I grieved for the young man I had been and all he had been deprived of. I grieved for what experiencing that would do to my current self. And I grieved for all of the people who may have missed her along the way because they were too blind to see him. In that moment of grief, I lashed out at a perfectly agreeable stranger.
That moment changed every single thing about me. It has now become my life’s mission to help people realise their true beauty and strength; right now, in the fur that heats them, this second. I’m a photographer and video producer, and it completely changed the way I shoot my clients, as well as prompting me to launch a second career, writing and speaking publicly, so that hopefully I can change the way we all perceive beauty.
I love my head the way it reflects light now. I love the way I look and feel, and the freedom it gives me. I can feel the wind a little less. I actually love applying shampoo. I love that there's a point. My boobs might be bigger from the propecia, whatever – I have hair and that's what matters.
But the thing is, I was amazing when I was bald too. That man had the strength to become this man. That man had the courage to leave home at 26 years old in search of a new life. He had the passion to pursue a career in the arts and actually succeed. And he had a big enough heart to not notice that people were mean to him along the way.
People are my business, and I’ve learned a lot about them over the years. I’ve learned that I’ve never met one that wasn’t stunning. No matter what they looked like or what they weighed. I’ve never seen a face or body that I couldn’t find beauty in or a person who didn’t possess compassion, humour and love.
Honestly, people are amazing. You just have to really see them.
