Interesting topic I decided to make my first (intense and very long) post
Here is my analytical view on male pattern baldness along with half a life story - read at your own discretion
In my opinion and from experience male pattern baldness is triggered by cortisol/stress, - mental stress which can also be because of social problems. I have seen studys on premature balding and high cortisol levels were the result of analysis. Cortisol causes fat deposits around the waist, which you may notice in alot of bald guys who look resonably slim except in the waist area- a pear shape body. Where as the actor on the previous page with hair is kind of chubby all around, this is not caused from cortisol fat deposits, just overeating or perhaps genetics. Of course you must be prone to hairloss (asian people have less incidence of this - they have a lower dht conversion rate or something similar- another study I have read from researching pubmed etc)
OK in my case I had just left university after the first semester as I wasnt enjoying it partly because my friends left, partly because I hadn't made any new ones, also the subject.
I was always a high acheiver top 10 student at school and quite athletic person - 1st XI soccer.
I felt like I had failed myself and parents by not doing university which I now realise is not as important as I thought, and I became depressed and my parents pressuring me to look for a job but I felt bad applying for dead end jobs (bad mindset I guess looking back) anyway I started getting quite alot of grey hair from stress(induced by myself and my parents) which made me very depressed as you can imagine at age 19!! vicous cycle..
So this was going on for 6months and I was getting grayer and it was pretty visible like you kind of have those gray wings on the side of your head and I was getting more stressed like what would my friends say etc, after all I was just one year out of highschool, I became insecure about going out meeting people, even seeing my friends etc.
I tried dying my hair black (natural is dark brown) and it looked good but still didnt really help me mentally as I felt I was covering something, the grey came through quickly and I didnt want to have to do that every week and I didnt need the extra cost as well having just started uni again. After dying my hair I got hit on more, not directly but I could hear girls in groups talking giggling etc about "that guy over there" obviously loud enough so I could hear. (tall/dark/handsome definately holds true for first impressions - these are 18 year old girls remember)
I guess I was pretty attractive as it was still summer and I was tanned pretty fit and had longish dark hair but I still felt insecure like I was covering something up and what if they found out so I didnt have the confidence to go talk to people.
After about 8 months after leaving uni for the first time I guess my body couldn't take it anymore and I started noticing hair loss around the temples, which is why I believe the trigger was all the negative mental stress.
At first I thought it would go away but after after noticing that my hair wasnt growing back I literally had a mental breakdown...I left my 2nd year semester at university after trying a different subject as I couldn't concentrate my brain was fucked (cortisol / high stress / cortisol based depression does cause brain damage which is reversible I believe, thank god).
age 19 still - I started a job in 2003 but still didnt feel good, eventually I shaved my mop which was fashionable back in 2003-4 (ashton kucher / rockstar look) as my hair was becoming less managable. But my mum complained about the shaved look as it had always been long and that didnt exactly make me feel good as i knew the hairloss would continue and I would *have* to do it oneday.
This got me what I now realise was alot of *good* female attention as the shaved head was just coming into fashion and I had a virtually normal hairline but probably still detectable hairloss(6months hair loss).
Even still I had bad feelings like "what would a women see in me - gray hair and losing it.." and never acted upon any of the attention I got. I regret not doing anything, I mean one pretty fine girl at work literally held my gaze while I walked toward her from 10M away and I didnt do anything, not even a word stupidstupidstupid :x
So I let it grow again, keeping it reasonably short until 2006 when I started doing #2 all over jobs.
I have alot of regrets as I am certain I caused my own hairloss and I will try to improve my life and have no more regrets.
I have now accepted male pattern baldness and am more a normal person although I feel I will never be the same person I once was. Orgasms/Food dont feel/taste the same anymore. It feels like a complete hormonal change.
I will try a treatment soon, I would say im about norwood 2 - 2.5 atm.
I recently saw a guy from high school who i can now really sympathise with. This guy was balding from about 15-16, although not balding myself I didnt really pickup on it as I thought no one can bald that early when I was in school.
When I saw him recently (age 23) he had pretty much the horseshoe shape and his hair wasnt shaved down. Norwood 6 at a guess.
Man I now really feel for that guy, he must of been near Norwood 3 at school! What he must have gone through inside geez, you could tell he was always nervous at school, spoke very quick now I know... He must of been in hell, he left early to join the army for a while - no coincidence there, crewcuts!!
However even since I knew this guy from a young age he seemed nervous so my cortisol theory still stands.
I recently noticed another high school friend had a receeding hairline who was much more "awkward" then I was. And again at the local pub you see guys from school and it seems the socially awkward ones / less confident guys from school were now balding.
What was quite amazing in my last job (IT, which attracts many socially awkward / geeky people) almost *all* the guys there had some kind of hairloss i would say 85% had some hairloss, even 2 chinese guys who are usually quite resistant to male pattern baldness (Which I put down to partly genes but partly different social culture they tend to have stronger family bonds and more of a group mentality, eg. how they complement each other to gain face etc like the japanese.) - Again social factors / cortisol in play here - this could explain why more japanese are bald in america because they dont have the same social enviroment to fall back on, as westerners tend to be more independent.
male pattern baldness also is probably tied in with insulin somewhere if you look at type 1 diabetics most are more prone to hairloss(again read this somewhere). Insulin/cortisol are also somewhat synergistically(sp) tied together(!) as cortisol causes energy release from cells. Which also ties together diet...
This could explain why office workers in japan have more male pattern baldness than farm workers (more stress and more fast food/less exercise)
On the whole Evolution concept of hairloss, I believe (and I have read this elsewhere) that it is to signal to the opposite sex to stay away from this man, in younger people it signals he may have issues. Getting baldness at a more "normal" age like 40 is acceptable as you have done your bit sexually and now don't need to be attractive to the opposite sex instead you need to raise a family.. So this is the 'normal' time for baldness to set in so you don't attract other females.
I have noticed being a reasonably intelligent guy who can read what people are thinking, people do unfortunately treat you differently if you have hairloss more-so premature hairloss, as people will make assumptions about you by how you look if they dont really know you. Some guys I notice tend to be worse at doing this, especially if they are older than you(30-40 age) and have all there hair, some will look down on you(as after all we judge more on looks as we tend to be after the best looking b**ch around 8) ),
Here is my analytical view on male pattern baldness along with half a life story - read at your own discretion
In my opinion and from experience male pattern baldness is triggered by cortisol/stress, - mental stress which can also be because of social problems. I have seen studys on premature balding and high cortisol levels were the result of analysis. Cortisol causes fat deposits around the waist, which you may notice in alot of bald guys who look resonably slim except in the waist area- a pear shape body. Where as the actor on the previous page with hair is kind of chubby all around, this is not caused from cortisol fat deposits, just overeating or perhaps genetics. Of course you must be prone to hairloss (asian people have less incidence of this - they have a lower dht conversion rate or something similar- another study I have read from researching pubmed etc)
OK in my case I had just left university after the first semester as I wasnt enjoying it partly because my friends left, partly because I hadn't made any new ones, also the subject.
I was always a high acheiver top 10 student at school and quite athletic person - 1st XI soccer.
I felt like I had failed myself and parents by not doing university which I now realise is not as important as I thought, and I became depressed and my parents pressuring me to look for a job but I felt bad applying for dead end jobs (bad mindset I guess looking back) anyway I started getting quite alot of grey hair from stress(induced by myself and my parents) which made me very depressed as you can imagine at age 19!! vicous cycle..
So this was going on for 6months and I was getting grayer and it was pretty visible like you kind of have those gray wings on the side of your head and I was getting more stressed like what would my friends say etc, after all I was just one year out of highschool, I became insecure about going out meeting people, even seeing my friends etc.
I tried dying my hair black (natural is dark brown) and it looked good but still didnt really help me mentally as I felt I was covering something, the grey came through quickly and I didnt want to have to do that every week and I didnt need the extra cost as well having just started uni again. After dying my hair I got hit on more, not directly but I could hear girls in groups talking giggling etc about "that guy over there" obviously loud enough so I could hear. (tall/dark/handsome definately holds true for first impressions - these are 18 year old girls remember)
I guess I was pretty attractive as it was still summer and I was tanned pretty fit and had longish dark hair but I still felt insecure like I was covering something up and what if they found out so I didnt have the confidence to go talk to people.
After about 8 months after leaving uni for the first time I guess my body couldn't take it anymore and I started noticing hair loss around the temples, which is why I believe the trigger was all the negative mental stress.
At first I thought it would go away but after after noticing that my hair wasnt growing back I literally had a mental breakdown...I left my 2nd year semester at university after trying a different subject as I couldn't concentrate my brain was fucked (cortisol / high stress / cortisol based depression does cause brain damage which is reversible I believe, thank god).
age 19 still - I started a job in 2003 but still didnt feel good, eventually I shaved my mop which was fashionable back in 2003-4 (ashton kucher / rockstar look) as my hair was becoming less managable. But my mum complained about the shaved look as it had always been long and that didnt exactly make me feel good as i knew the hairloss would continue and I would *have* to do it oneday.
This got me what I now realise was alot of *good* female attention as the shaved head was just coming into fashion and I had a virtually normal hairline but probably still detectable hairloss(6months hair loss).
Even still I had bad feelings like "what would a women see in me - gray hair and losing it.." and never acted upon any of the attention I got. I regret not doing anything, I mean one pretty fine girl at work literally held my gaze while I walked toward her from 10M away and I didnt do anything, not even a word stupidstupidstupid :x
So I let it grow again, keeping it reasonably short until 2006 when I started doing #2 all over jobs.
I have alot of regrets as I am certain I caused my own hairloss and I will try to improve my life and have no more regrets.
I have now accepted male pattern baldness and am more a normal person although I feel I will never be the same person I once was. Orgasms/Food dont feel/taste the same anymore. It feels like a complete hormonal change.
I will try a treatment soon, I would say im about norwood 2 - 2.5 atm.
I recently saw a guy from high school who i can now really sympathise with. This guy was balding from about 15-16, although not balding myself I didnt really pickup on it as I thought no one can bald that early when I was in school.
When I saw him recently (age 23) he had pretty much the horseshoe shape and his hair wasnt shaved down. Norwood 6 at a guess.
Man I now really feel for that guy, he must of been near Norwood 3 at school! What he must have gone through inside geez, you could tell he was always nervous at school, spoke very quick now I know... He must of been in hell, he left early to join the army for a while - no coincidence there, crewcuts!!
However even since I knew this guy from a young age he seemed nervous so my cortisol theory still stands.
I recently noticed another high school friend had a receeding hairline who was much more "awkward" then I was. And again at the local pub you see guys from school and it seems the socially awkward ones / less confident guys from school were now balding.
What was quite amazing in my last job (IT, which attracts many socially awkward / geeky people) almost *all* the guys there had some kind of hairloss i would say 85% had some hairloss, even 2 chinese guys who are usually quite resistant to male pattern baldness (Which I put down to partly genes but partly different social culture they tend to have stronger family bonds and more of a group mentality, eg. how they complement each other to gain face etc like the japanese.) - Again social factors / cortisol in play here - this could explain why more japanese are bald in america because they dont have the same social enviroment to fall back on, as westerners tend to be more independent.
male pattern baldness also is probably tied in with insulin somewhere if you look at type 1 diabetics most are more prone to hairloss(again read this somewhere). Insulin/cortisol are also somewhat synergistically(sp) tied together(!) as cortisol causes energy release from cells. Which also ties together diet...
This could explain why office workers in japan have more male pattern baldness than farm workers (more stress and more fast food/less exercise)
On the whole Evolution concept of hairloss, I believe (and I have read this elsewhere) that it is to signal to the opposite sex to stay away from this man, in younger people it signals he may have issues. Getting baldness at a more "normal" age like 40 is acceptable as you have done your bit sexually and now don't need to be attractive to the opposite sex instead you need to raise a family.. So this is the 'normal' time for baldness to set in so you don't attract other females.
I have noticed being a reasonably intelligent guy who can read what people are thinking, people do unfortunately treat you differently if you have hairloss more-so premature hairloss, as people will make assumptions about you by how you look if they dont really know you. Some guys I notice tend to be worse at doing this, especially if they are older than you(30-40 age) and have all there hair, some will look down on you(as after all we judge more on looks as we tend to be after the best looking b**ch around 8) ),