Letters to the Editor
-
Did he even answer the question?
It seems to me that the young lady's question was how to comfort and support her boyfriend, not whether or not she should leave him. In general Mr. Tennis seems to be an intelligent, kind, caring soul, but too often lately I read through to the end of a response to find that the question wasn't answered at all or it could have been answered in half the space.
-
Yeah, I kinda wonder about the assumption...
It doesn't seem to me like she's thinking of whether or not to leave him. She sees that he's upset about his hair, and she wants to know how to comfort him. Nothing wrong with that.
Really, I think that telling him that you find bald men to be wildly sexy is probably the best course of action. And tell him to shave his head.
-
Hold off all you razor wielding nutjobs!
Before she tells him how sexy bald is (lie) and skins his head (ugly) lets get something out in the open.
Most black guys pull off the shaved head perfectly. Most white guys do not. Shaving it all off doesn't always look better.
People, this guy is depressed about his thinning hair. You(pl) would be some of the worst shrinks in town. He's depressed about his thinning hair. Your(pl) solution - get rid of all of it?!?! Do you folks think? He would be more depressed. And her demanding him to shave it off is the opposite of comforting him.
Wow.
-
It's not the baldness that's hot, but the air of confidence, which can't necessarily be acquired with shaving
My ex-husband went bald really early - mid 20s. It bummed him out, not because it presaged aging and dying but because he looked different and not better. The thing is - his hair was just OK. He didn't have a great head of it, it wasn't beautifully cut or styled - it was just hair. He's an engineer and pretty practical, and I think the biggest thing that bothered him about losing it was the vulnerability to sunburn - it was a drag to always remember to put sunblock on his head, and then it would sweat off and run into his eyes, and he had to remember to reapply....the solution to *that* problem was a baseball hat. I got used to seeing him in one 90% of the time.
Eventually we got out the clippers and cut it really really short - a '1' setting. My ex is not traditionally handsome, but he is attractive with strong masculine features. The short buzz looks better than the over-long monk's tonsure he'd been sporting, and puts his features to good display.
But I don't think it's the shortness of the remaining hair that is sexy so much as his self-confidence, which it must be noted he had in abundant supply before the hair loss. He sports the shaved head with an air of total indifference. You know just by looking at him that nothing as trivial as hair 'gets' to him. With or without hair, he has an air of quiet command and total self-acceptance, and that's what makes him so attractive.
So shaving can work but from my point of view those it works best with have, by nature of their personality, already self-selected that choice. In other words, it's something the confident choose, not something the less confident can or should be talked into.
Though I myself prefer the shaved look to the receding/too-long-and-limp-locked look of so many baldness sufferers, I wouldn't advise the boyfriend to shave his head just yet..if he's uncomfortable with losing his hair, it would be a rather radical change to expect him to embrace and love having none. I think he needs to spend time considering it, and do so side-by-side with another equally radical option: getting hair implants. Maybe ask a number of close friends which they'd prefer to see - his normal hairline restored via implants vs. a shaved head. Listening to them might help put his self image relative to his body image into a different perspective than the one he has now (which understandably, is mostly of loss and mourning).
-
Isn't it interesting...
When a problem to do with male loss of attractiveness / aging is presented, men and women try to reassure and advise.
When a problem to do with female loss of attractiveness / aging is presented, many letter writers attack the woman, jeering at her to accept it, reveling in the notion that it's all part of the natural order, that she's doomed to be unchosen, it's just the way things are, etc.
women just don't seem to jump on vulnerable men in the same way, reiterating over and over how women prefer men with full, virile heads of hair and to just get over it already, he should count himself lucky to have a girlfriend and spend a lot of money on her to make up for all the studs with full heads of hair she's longing for on the inside.
(it felt bad to write such things, even in the context of not directing it at a specific person..wow, how bitter and unhappy men must be to write some of the mean things I read in letters touching on the issue of female desirability)
-
I have made a career out of responding to life's indignities with feigned dignity.
This included having my suitcases thrown out on the lawn, 2005, by my brainwashed son telling me I don't belong on the land and that I am a guest on the land.
Included my ex-husband having 1 out of wedlock child while we were married, then one child with the maid's daughter after we were divorced, then my brainwashed daughter working for her father and her callous coldness that she did not want to hear how I was admitted by Immigration to my new country.
After my son declared , summer 2007, that I was 'all about money' I gifted him my shares in a company . These shares were my nest egg with which I intended to start my new life.
My son now has now begun to see the light.
Responding with dignity costs a lot in personal energy. It is helpful to develop a mask when one's self esteem has totally crumbled.
Thank you, Cary, for dignifying my life's work.