why does male pattern baldness not bother some men?

[jabbathehair]

a great example for me is my dad. he has no hair at all on top. I guess the horse shoe shape. he went thin on top in his late twenties, as soon as that happened he shaved his head and that was it. he's never been bothered about it and just says it's part of life. he's always had girlfriends since he shaved his head. he's also confident and in great health with a good body at 50. he did fitness modeling in his twenties and thirties. he earns good Money and could easily afford a transplant or a lifetime of finasteride and min but he's not bothered...WHY?

with me the thought of when my male pattern baldness finally becomes aggressive scares the **** out of me. is it just a confidence thing? I've seen a few guys on here say how no women are interested in guys with no hair yet my dad has always done well there!

what's your opinions?

 

[blondguy]

It all relates to where people invest value into themselves. What is their CORE. For your father clearly (at least when he was younger) that was body building. His body was where his confidence came from, where is strength, and possibly even part of his self worth came from. So even if he had some days where he was freaked about losing hair all he needed to do is go back to the gym, or take on a new modeling job.


Confidence all comes from where you invest in yourself. The easiest place to do this is your surface looks, especially your hair. Thats usually the first place people go when looking for this when they are young. 1. Its easy to change around in different styles, so you have a sense of control with it. WHich is empowering 2. Its a symbol of youth, and fertility 3. Even if you don't like your other body parts your hair is easy to compliment, its easy to change, its one of the first physical traits people are drawn to.

Gaining self confidence like your Dad means finding deep, satisfying value you in yourself in ways that cannot be shaken by hair loss. A place where that monster can't touch you. Doing this is also a major step to self growth, so its not easy. But having more individualized form of self worth will make you a far more confident/happy person even if you were not losing your hair.

Probably with your Dad this change kinda just happened because he found something that he was good at and it was a place he came to. He was also lucky in the sense that the thing he found self worth with also connected to his physical apperance so his physical sense of confidence was probably never shaken by hair loss.

 

[resu]

They think there's nothing you can do about it so they might as well accept it, not everyone knows about minoxidil and finasteride... or they just don't care.

 

[jabbathehair]

blond guy that was a pretty damn awesome post! when you put it like that it really puts things into perspective. I appreciate that reply.

can I ask though does male pattern baldness bother you a lot or are you learning to cope with it? you seem to understand where a lot of the insecurities come from so how are you addressing them?

- - - Updated - - -

shadow that's understandable. it must of been hard at 16 to go through that. did you suffer much from other people though or did a lot of it come from your inner critic?

 

[blondguy]

Its funny, I think its easier to understands these things, and especially when I can talk about it outwardly rather then with myself. When it comes back to myself I stop, partly because I am afraid my own advice won't work! (its all silly thinking on my part, over thinking really). Its really only when I can talk about other people do I start to find more clarity. So in that sense I probably learned just as much writing this post as you did reading it!

But I have started to make that realization, that the positive of hair loss is its made me see the weakness I have in my own confidence, and how no matter what its something I need to change if I want to be a better person. But its also made me realize that with my own hair loss regimen, I need to also include a mental one where I start looking for confidence in other places. After all its only a bunch of stupid dead cells growing out of the top of my head!

But I guess action is always the harder step in the process of self development. (At least for me)

 

[abcdefg]

What about a guy that does not have a good body or has other problems and then on top of that goes bald? male pattern baldness is kind of a compounding problem that makes other problems all add up to seem even worse. A big part of it though is kind of mental with how you view things because some guys just really dont care what other people think of them like you say but others like most of us do.
Also really with rogain and propecia your not getting back from a Norwood 7 and transplants what a pain in the *** and expensive is it even worth it? With the treatments we currently have short of preventing hair loss I really think living with it is a very good option. All the treatments are expensive right now since technically propecia has no generic and proscar is not a hair loss treatment. Anyone on advanced norwood might as well live with it short of some break through that can regrow a ton of hair which we will all find out about over the years if its ever found.

 

[Quantum Cat]

because some people are ugly with weird shaped heads - balding just makes that worse

 

[jabbathehair]

my nan is really not that good looking at all and his head is not a perfect shape. yea he had a great body but he put hours of work into it. it didn't just come to him. I'm talking 2 hours a day 6 days a week a boring perfect diet.

I will admit I'm very average looking with a bloody small head. everyone jokes about it. and yes I feel when I loose my hair tats it. I'll never get another woman and it sucks.

I actually am trying to persuade my dad to try out finasteride and min atm just to see what kind of results he would get. woukdbt be interesting!

 

[BrightonBaldy]

i cant be the only one but hairloss is only an issue with me when faced with people who knew me when i had hair.

i can opennly chat and joke about hairloss, medications, bald celebs etc with people in my work, mates or women that i wouldnt dream of around old friends. i dont care abourt being known as the bald guy at all day to day, put me infront of an old school friend and i turn into a blob of play dough

 

[blondguy]

In the end if you are worried about confidence (often a key element of attraction for women in men) Your looks matter far less then you think. Yes, they play a part, but its the energy that you give off that will bring them to you. Yes this guys Dad found his confidence in his body, but it wasnt really his body which gave him confidence. It was what he could DO with it. It was the skill, the action he had that he could invest confidence in. He was confident in his ABILITY to make such a body and make some kind of a living off of it.

Only when you can stop defining your own confidence by the shallow markers of youth will you be really happy and confident with yourself. Everyone should look at balding as a chance to redefine themselves as something greater then what they once were. Looking at this as a chance for themselves to grow. Or you can wallow in self pity. It is your choice.

 

[abcdefg]

You know pinning down the importance of hair is tough. Sometimes I think its not too important and other times I think its even more important than even guys desperate for hair think it is. On the side of it being important a guy that is Norwood 0 looks very young for his age. Elvis, reagan, and many others did their hair contribute to them becoming so well liked? I dont know I think it did if they were bald even Norwood 2 might change it completely. I know people in my family that noticed my hair loss even from different people years ago and I am maybe Norwood 1.5 at worse even today years later so it was very minor and slow but just minor changes in density or small temple loss affects how you look by making you look older even if its subtle and not say Norwood 3 I think people still notice. So I think hair makes huge difference between the same guy at Norwood 0 getting ID'd at a bar for not being 21 verses looking 40 at age 19. You see it all the time a guy that is Norwood 0 and is like 35 but you could mistake for being 18 almost solely based on hair.

 

[uncomfortable man]

I suppose that some men aren't bothered by it because they never cared about their appearence or how they are perceived.

 

[Quantum Cat]

some actually like the buzzed down/skinhead look because it can make them look tougher or more thuggish - which can be beneficial in some circumstances.

Others just accept what they can't change and don't let it stop them from living their life - I envy them actually.

 

[Primo]

EVERY male pattern baldness-affected man is bothered by it make no mistake about that... it's just as Quantum Cat points out, some men are better at accepting it can't be changed than others...

Some buzz it short, keep it as neat as they can and then try hard every day to forget about it and concentrate on other more deeper, meaningful things in life to keep them happy and fulfilled, while others prefer to wallow permanently in male pattern baldness-related misery.

 

[kejan]

Some people just accept it as a part of life. No doubt the first signs of it they were most likely not happy about it, but I guess they brush it off as just a part of life. They have confidence, self belief and a don't give a **** attitude though. Something that is alien to near enough everyone on this forum.

''They don't care about their looks'' - absolute bull. Many of them would rather put effort into improving everywhere else where they can by cardio, working out, dressing sharp and advancing their studies or career.

They get by fine, sure on some of them the baldness takes them a peg off their attractive scale, but they make it back up in other departments from having the basics of being to engage in conversation with people, keep themselves in shape, etc.

 

[bluesprings]

I think if it happens later in a guy's life after he's found a partner and had a family its not as big a deal. I believe the reason most men have so much trouble with it is because it hinders them in finding a mate. I know at this point in my life I don't care except for the female factor.

 

[BrightonBaldy]

when people post about these men out there who apparently have learned to live with baldness and dont give a **** about it, it always sounds as if they are trying to convince themselves rather than the likes of me.

a man who goes out of his way to compensate for hairloss by punishing themselves in a gym or slogging out 60+ hours aweek to advance a career very much does care about hairloss. anybody willing to do either to themselves has to be driven by something, ambitious people are ambitious regardless of their hair not because of it.

in the gym i used to goto, there were dozens of mid-life crisis types and lonely kids all killing themselves in search of an identity, none of the the ones i spoke to were confident and all of them seemed a bit lost in life.

its one of the reasons why im not going anymore really, i couldnt justify the exprense given i can do all of my body weighted exercises and running on the street or at home.

im sure there will br similar people in high pressured jobs, who dont really know why theyre doing it, short of a desire for an identity or peer acceptance of course.

anytime in life you feel the need to compensate, you have to gauge whether or not the people youre doing it for are worth it, ultimatley you cannot harm yourself in anyway for your own benefit. my exercises increase my flexibility and lowers blood pressure, it regulates sleep, nobody else can see these things. ive cut back in work so ive more time to myself and i feel healthier, i dont need the extra money to buy **** like expensive clothes or houses, i even sold my car as i was hardly using it!

if in the long run having less money stops me from being attractive to women then i can accept that. using drive and ambition that takes a toll on your health or time, to find a woman, is ****ing insane.

 

[ChrisW1980uk]

I used to go to the gym regularly. But I realised I was doing it to compensate for being short. Not the only short guy doing it. A guy of my height too bulked up ends up looking even shorter, and kind of like a square!

 

[uncomfortable man]

Well, he doesn't have any respect for himself or his image then.

Allow me to clarify, I don't correlate lack of hair with lack of self respect because hair loss is involuntary. It's not like we just chose to let ourselves go. I attribute the lack of caring about baldness to a general lack of social awareness. They must be oblivious to the very fact that baldness is disliked by our society.

It's that or suffer silently while acting like they don't care about it for fear of being reprimanded.

 

[KANGA]

I used to go to the gym regularly. But I realised I was doing it to compensate for being short. Not the only short guy doing it. A guy of my height too bulked up ends up looking even shorter, and kind of like a square!

It's about being lean and ripped, man. Work on reducing body fat.

Bulk starts to look bad on anyone who has over 12% body fat.

I get compliments all the time on my definition. Women love it.