A guy at work has alopecia like yours, and he shaves his head. If a person looks very closely, the "islands of 5 o'clock shadow" are faintly visible, but they do not look unattractive. At any rate, he looks much better than if his hair were longer. Please give the shave a try. I am confident that you will both look and feel much better.
Go for it! I recently started shaving mine, and I love the look and feel. Everyone's self conscious about it at first, so give yourself some time to adjust. And you won't have to worry about the patches anymore.
Stubble shouldn't be an issue as long as you shave in the mornings and finish by going against the grain.
Shave it, man!
And remember that with alopecia areata your bulbs are all still alive!
First of all, well done on making the step to air the truth, We all know know how difficult it is to share hair loss with people. Secondly all the other guys are right, you are the only one who will notice any shadow, and one of my school friends had alopecia and shaved it off for almost all the time I knew him, he looked cool and I'm certain you will too.
Thank you for all the kind and inspirational comments. I ordered some headslick and a few different razors to try out. I might pull this off very very soon