Shaving My Head

Making the decision to shave my head was difficult. I had so much self-doubt, so many questions, and was worried about how to even cut my own hair. It was May of 2020, and all of the salons and barbershops were closed due to COVID-19. My hair was getting long. I needed to make a decision about what to do.

It started when I saw a picture of myself from the side. I thought I saw that my hair was thinning out on the top of my head. I had just turned 25, but I didn't believe that my hair might be disappearing. When I looked at myself in the mirror, everything seemed perfectly fine. No male pattern baldness, no receding hairline, no clumps or unusual amounts of hairs falling out. Using my phone's camera, I took a picture of the top of my head. It took a few tries to get the framing right, but I could not, and did not want to believe what I saw in the photo. The hair on the crown of my head was definitely thinning out.

I started pulling up old photos, trying to pinpoint when my hair started thinning. How had I not caught this before? Why hadn't anyone told me? I went to get my hair cut all the time, and nobody said anything. I'm not the tallest person in the world, so surely other people saw the top or back of my head at some point, right? I only found what I didn't want to see, photos of myself from the past couple of years where my hair was thinning. My dad has a full head of hair, as does everyone else in my family. Well, except for my mom's dad, my grandpa. He was bald the whole time I knew him. He was bald since he was a teenager. Not the best card to draw, but I thought I had avoided that undesirable outcome. I guess not.

I had doubt first, then anger, then frustration, followed by plenty of anxiety and sadness. I did a quick search online to see what options I had. Medicine, hair transplants, something that I didn't already know about, what was the best choice? I saw a few medicine options that seemed promising. Hair transplants seemed to work, and I liked the idea of not being on a medication for the rest of my hairy life. Other than that, it seemed like the only option I had was to change my hairstyle. My hair was never long, but I liked my hair style. I got the same haircut for as long as I could remember, as long as I had any sense of my preferred style.

I talked to my wife, hoping it wasn't as bad as the photos looked, hoping we didn't need to discuss what my options were. I just wanted things to stay the same. I didn't want to change how I looked. She confirmed that my hair was thinning, and that she hadn't noticed. I was a little bitter at first, like she owed me an apology, she owed me the warning that one tiny patch of my scalp was starting to thin out. Obviously she didn't do anything wrong. We talked a lot about what options were. What side effects does the medicine have? How much do these options cost? Hair transplants were way too expensive. Medicine seemed like the best option for me to avoid a major decision about changing my hairstyle, but there are side effects that I didn't want to have to worry about. Plus, I'd have to keep using the medicine as long as I wanted to keep my hair.

My wife encouraged me to try a buzz cut at least. She mentioned how it'd be a good look for me. She was so supportive. I was terrified. What would I look like? Do I have a lumpy head? I didn't want to admit that cutting my hair was the best option. I began to do my homework and research as much as I could. How do I cut my own hair, do I need to learn how to avoid any mistakes, what do other people do, how do they do it, is there a video I could watch that might make me feel more assured?

YouTube was what helped me the most. I found a few videos of people cutting their own hair, but not a ton in the way I wanted. I didn't want to cut all of my hair off. I wanted a very short haircut. The only thing I could find online that was what I wanted was an image of Brad Pitt's very short buzz cut. The hair is an even length everywhere. It looked good on him. This gave me some some hope. I'm nowhere near as attractive as Brad Pitt, though. the self doubt and anxiety was very high at this point. I didn't know what I was doing. I see people at work every day. If I mess up cutting my own hair, I won't want to go to work looking like an idiot.

It didn't seem that hard to cut my own hair, but I was thinking about a lot. I bought a Wahl electric hair clipper off of a scalper on ebay. Yes, things were that bad during COVID-19. Nobody had hair cutting products in stock at that time. I decided to just try cutting my hair shorter on the top and buzz the sides and back, kind of like what I usually ask for at the barber. I tried to imagine what that would look like, and decided to change my mind and do a long buzz cut to start. I put a towel down on the bathroom floor and started to buzz my hair with the longest guard and just take it a step at a time, shorter and shorter until something looks right, or maybe wrong. I cut it to a 3 guard, then decided things were going in the right direction and I should keep going. I cut it down to a 1 guard and liked how it looked. My wife kept telling me how good it looked. I was starting to believe her. I was starting to feel like I made the right decision.

Feeling my head with my hair that short felt odd. It's so spiky. Oh, putting a hat on my head feels strange, my hair grips the hat and it's hard to take the hat off. We start calling it Velcro-head. I start to feel like I liked how it looked. I wished I had done it sooner. I started to wonder what people would think, what would people's reaction be? Some people were shocked, some made innocent jokes, most said it looked good. One guy saluted me at work. He must have thought I was in the military. I mean, I did look the part. More than one person asked if I was sick. More than one person asked when I was going to grow my hair out again. I think these people are the same who ask a recently married couple when they're going to have kids. Someone even mentioned how cool I must feel in the summer. It took me a second to realize they meant temperature. I was happy that I had cut my hair and now had a path forward that was maintainable. I was glad I didn't have to pay for any more haircuts anymore.

I felt so strange when I'd go to move my hair out of my eyes and it wasn't there. I needed a sweat rag when I worked out since my hair didn't soak it up. I was colder in the winter. I needed to put sunscreen on the top of my head so it wouldn't get burnt. I needed to change how I took my hoodie off so that it didn't get stuck on my short, Velcro-head.

The worst thing I had to learn was that my hair was a warning system for my head hitting things. No alert that a cabinet door was nearby, just a wham into my skull. Wearing a bandage on the top of my head really makes me feel like an old man.

Another odd thing to adapt to is the lack of buzzed but not bald options on avatar builders, like the Apple Memoji, the Nintendo Mii, the "make a LinkedIn headshot" stable diffusion (AI but not really) apps. The stable diffusion apps really, really want to add hair to my head. How rude.

Now I buzz my hair the shortest I can with no guard on the clippers. I really like the cheap travel clippers I got, they cut even shorter than the Wahl clippers. I cut it every 5-8 days. I still miss the ocassional hair by my ears.

I'm glad I cut my hair the way I do. I'm glad I decided that I didn't care what people think of it anymore. I like that I can look at photos of me and not feel like I wished I had hair on the top of my head. Now I like how it looks. I like even more how I feel.