First of all, it is nice to talk to some guys that might understand what I have gone through. My friends and family don't seem to get it.
When I was in my teens, I had thick, awesome hair. My hair some so thick and coarse that when I got a hair cut if the beautician didn't thoroughly clean and lubricate the clippers, my hair would actually jam the clippers. I even started shaving when I was 13. Because of my grizzly looks, I could pass as 25 yrs old, when i was only 17.
Fast Forward...I'm about 21 and I thought I was going through a string of bad hair cuts. I just couldn't get my hair to style the way it use to. One time when I went to the barber, I said "make sure you use the thinning shears on top." This has been a normal statement since I had always had thick hair. But the gal looked at me and said "Ummm....ok....if you want me too...."
I din't think too much about it till I came home and I still couldn't style the hair like I wanted to. I finally realized that my hair wasn't a thick as it use to. But I thought, oh well. It was kind of too thick anyways. (I was still in denial)
Now I'm about 23 and I'm attending a banquet dinner for my wife's work. At the same table as us sat one of the members of the board of directors. He was bald himself and he started to talk about MPB. In the middle of the conversation he looked right at me and said "Well, you know what I'm talking about, right?" In my head, I wanted to turn the table over and give the guy a beating. But instead, I just nodded. He was my wife's boss after all. When I came home, I sat a thought. I guess I'm going bald. Oh well.
I sort of accepted it. I grew my hair on top a bit longer and started to comb it back. I still looked neat and clean cut. I was fine with the way I looked.
When I was about 26 I got a new job and was in training. I got a hair cut one night. The next day a fellow trainee looked at me and said what did he barber do to you?! I was confused.
She told me that it looked like they used a shorter clipper on the side of my head then in the back of my head. I didn't really know what she was talking about at the time.
A year later, I finally got it. Not only did I have a receding hair line, a bald spot on the back of the head, and a thin spot on top, I was loosing hair on the sides of my head. Around the temples, and around the ears. It was getting really thin. I became very frustrated. It is one thing to have MPB and have thin hair on top. But now it seemed like I was loosing hair where I shouldn't be. I started buzzing it because that is the only way to hide the fact I was very thin on the sides of my head.
The buzzing got shorter and shorter. Pretty soon I was using a No. 1 clippers over my whole head. My wife hated it. I hated it. But I thought it looked better than longer hair that looked patchy.
I'm 31 now. About a month ago I went to give myself a hair cut. Something came over me and I didn't even put the no. 1 clipper on. I just buzzed my hair with nothing but the clipper. To my surprise, I kind of liked it. My wife and family didn't.
Soon after that I read an article about Howie Mandel and the reason he shaved his head was because he was a germa-phobe and the shaved head gave him a clean feeling. I also thought of other bald actors such as Michael Chicklas and thought that they looked good bald. I know Michael Chicklas has MPB cuz I watched him the 90's in the show "The Commish." I got out my razer and shaving cream and went at it.
I had mixed feelings about the look. But a couple days afterwards I had a friend that told me that I pulled the bald look off really well. A couple days after that my wife told me that the look was growing on her. My mother said she was starting to like it. Now my wife tells me she loves it. She said I look so clean cut.
So now I'm a male pattern baldness guy, (in my opinion I'm more than that because I'm loosing hair where most MPB guys keep for a very long time) that is now a complete BBC guy.
Only thing I want to add is I have OCD. So when I do something, I go all the way. Even with a clean, smooth shave, I still have a shadow. I know for a lot of BBC guys, the shadow is almost like a crown. Like they are saying "Look at me, I'm BBC and I love it!" But I looked at guys like Howie Mandel that had a shadow less dome and I became envious. Sure he could have a ton of make up on but it still looked awesome. I started doing research and found out that some guys laser it off. If I was a bald, rich movie star, that is what I would do. But lasering the scalp can be painful and expensive. Through this forum I caught onto scalptweezing.com. I've been thinking about tweezing. However I know many of this forum is against it, and many guys love it. I tweezed the small island I have on the top of my forehead this morning and then shaved my whole head. My plan is to retweeze the island in a few days while just shaving everyday everywhere else. If I like the tweeze, I will slowly do more of the top of my head. I'm only going to do a little at a time. That way my shadow will always look like a MPB guy with a very thin top. If I end up liking it and I do not get very many ingrown hairs, I may start to do the sides and back. But that will probably be all in one shot. I don't want a patchy shadow.
Thanks for listening. Hopefully some of you can relate to my story. At any rate. I am confident about my looks now. I love being bald. If somebody doesn't like it, then too bad. I just think in my head that they would rather be bald than have patches of baldness throughout their head.