Greetings all;
Well so my story...
For the last 10 years or so I've grown my hair out long, cut it off, and then donated it three times. I "retired" from law enforcement back in 2000. I say "retired" because I was only 38 years old at the time but after 16 years in the business I decided to move on to my "second" career. I'm an I.T. Manager for a building materials manufacturer in Central Oregon currently.
Back when I was in LE and the military, 1985-1989, I had short hair. Flat tops and crew cuts mostly. Only after leaving jobs that required short hair did I decide to grow my hair out long. Back in the 70's and 80's I had stints of long hair, but didn't we all at some point? This last time of growing out my hair really long ended a few months ago. I wanted to grow it as long as I could, to find my hair's terminal length. Well, when my hair started getting caught up in my belt as I put my belt on my pants I figured that was long enough. Still no end in sight as to just how long I could grow it.
I went to a friend from church, who happens to be a barber. For years he had been teasing me (friendly teasing) that he would give me a free haircut if I would let him do it. So one day out of the blue I showed up at his barber shop and told him it "was time." I was also, at the time, sporting a long ZZ Top style beard. I told him I wanted him to cut my hair as short as possible so I could harvest as much hair as possible to be donated. I had felt that this would be my last time donating. He asked me if I wanted him to use clippers only without a guard and I told him to "go for it".
After I got my head clippered really close it brought back memories of me having really short hair and that got me to thinking about totally shaving my head bald, something I had come very close to before but never truly realized. I wanted to know what it was like and how it would "feel." I knew I didn't plan on growing it long again so why not go totally the other direction? Just call me a man of opposites if you like.
Well, a few weeks ago I decided to just go for it. My hair grows really fast, or so I've been told so I thought if I didn't like it it would be no time at all before I was back to crew cut length. I also have a full head of hair. At first thought though, I thought to myself that I would be some sort of hypocrite or something, or perhaps taken as a little weird, to be shaving off a full head of hair. I had always told myself that if I were to start going bald I would just shave bald instead of trying to hide my baldness. But here I was shaving off a full head of hair! I could just see myself getting pummeled by a roving gang of forced baldies hell bent on extracting revenge from someone who would dare to shave off a full head of hair. Oh, the intolerance of it all!!
Well it all came down to the fact that my head is my head, and my hair is my hair, and the choice is my choice. So off it all came. WOW! Going from a buzz cut to bald is a noticeable difference. I liked it. The smoothness was awesome and weird (there's that word again). I found myself rubbing all over my head feeling the smoothness where before there had been at least a few mm's length. My wife likes short hair and told me that she thought she could get used to the smooth bald head. I am finding now that while we're kicked back on the couch watching TV together that she will absentmindedly rub the back of my smooth head. I think she's starting to like it.
We'll see how this goes. I've been lurking here reading posts and was surprised at all the men who are bald by choice, or BBC. I didn't even know there was a phrase for that. When doing a Google search on men who shave off a full head of hair I found this site and have been reading quite a bit.
Well so far that's pretty much my story.
Chris
