I Gave Someone Courage, Hope, and Peace of Mind?!
I guess now’s as good a time as any to give myself a nice pat on the back.
****Pats self on back******
It’s okay, lord knows I don’t do this very often.
Here’s a cool email I received today from a young reader named John:
Hey Robert, So I’m a 16 year old kid who’s hairline started going back about six months ago. I was really worried that I would go bald fully in like two years and my worst nightmare would come true. Now I think that my hairline may just be maturing after looking at your articles relating to the maturing hairline. Fingers crossed. Anyways, I just wanted to say thanks for writing this blog as it has given me so much courage, hope, and most importantly, information on this journey. Without it I’d probably be an anxious mess 24/7, I even come on here and reread old articles just to give me peace of mind. Thanks a million, John.
Thanks, John. Helping people like you is the main reason I started this hair loss blog in the first place. Best of luck on the rest of your journey.
Robert Price is a writer, consumer advocate, and hair loss researcher with thousands of hours of experience in the field. His goal is to keep you out of the hair loss rabbit hole, underworld, or whatever you want to call it. He founded Hair Loss Daily, the unbiased hair loss blog, in 2016. You can learn more about Robert in the my story section of this website.
Well, you DO deserve a pat on the back for your efforts on this site. Thank you for providing me (and everyone else) a forum for asking questions and offering our opinions about male pattern baldness. I especially appreciate the opportunity of talking about the benefits of baldness and pointing out that MPB is not a disease in need of a cure, but is instead a natural, normal inherited trait. Despite all the negative press it continually gets. It seems everyone out there is deathly afraid of male pattern baldness and there is a never ending, feverishly desperate search for a ‘cure’.
But guess what? Not everyone fears the onset of baldness. You already know how I feel about it, and I suspect I’m not alone. If I had not gone bald 20 years ago, I would be searching for a way to cause male pattern baldness. But I’m not sure it would be any easier to find a way to cause/induce MPB than it has been to find a ‘cure’.
Poor John, and every other teen age boy who is terrified he might be going bald. Thanks for setting his mind at ease. I remember when I was his age, instead of dreading it, I eagerly anticipated the first signs of a receding hairline. When my hairline receded to Norwood 2-3 my senior year of college, I was almost deliriously happy. When my hairline stopped receding, I became depressed. I’ve already told my hair loss story here on this site, so I won’t bore you again with it. I’ll just say this: I had to wait another 30 years to finally go bald, but it was worth the wait. I’ve been Norwood 6 bald for 20 years and now I love it more than ever. I have no regrets, other than not having gone bald back in my 20s.
John, if you are out there and read this, relax, cheer up. Going bald is not the end of the world. As a matter of fact, if you are lucky enough to go bald some day, you might discover that you like it. You might also discover that the girl you marry loves it too. My wife loves it as much as I do, which make being bald even more fun.
Your kind words are appreciated! I don’t necessarily agree that MPB gets “bad press” as you put it. I think most people just don’t view it as a favorable or desired trait. Obviously there are exceptions, such as yourself and your wife! Many men, myself included, associate hair loss with aging, being old, etc. My grandpa was bald, my dad wasn’t, and my dad always appeared youthful and vibrant for his age. So I associated hair loss with being an old grandpa (no offense!) and hair with vitality….or something like that. It all worked out for you, and I’m always happy to give you a platform to speak your wisdom to the youth! Thanks again.
As usual, you are right. Baldness is associated with getting old and being a grandpa. So it is being old that gets all the bad press. I get it. Baldness is just a symptom. A very obvious, visible, hard to hide symptom. But wait a minute! I AM old. And I am a grandpa. All that and the fact that my wife loves it makes being bald alright. Great, even. By the way, I don’t mind being old. I feel I have earned it. And I love being a grandpa. 🙂
That said I still believe that if I had gone bald in my late 20s I would have loved it … after I had gotten over the shock. The reason is I had always wanted it so badly. And believe me, despite how much I desired it, going bald in less than two years was a traumatic shock. It was like riding on a runaway train with no one at the controls. But I didn’t derail and I did arrive safely at the end of the line. Like you said, it all worked out well for me. I got fulfillment of one of my fondest wishes and I love it as much as I always knew I would.