gym bro + sly bald + no beard = dramatic reactions from strangers

[max.b]

I'm white, 6', no beard (just light stubble), living in California. I don't look like a pro bodybuilder, just your average dude that goes to the gym and doesn't juice.

I don't want to post my face for privacy reasons, but I like to think that I look like this dude, although not as good looking, obviously, with stubble, and I dress casual:



The reactions I got to being bald are roughly like this:

For every dozen under-40 year old women I see while running errands, shopping or going for a walk, a couple will do



and one will do



Before shaving my head, I can't recall a single instance where a female stranger gave me this reaction, now it's a regular occurrence. There should be a word for this gesture in English, but there isn't.

Black men sometimes look at me sideways, like this



but there are not too many of them where I live.

There are a lot of Asians though, including many foreign ones. Asian men stare more than any other group, sometimes pretending not to, but once you've been on the receiving end of their attention more than a dozen times, you notice the same patterns.

White balding guys stare too, but they are much more discrete than "stop in your tracks, pull out your phone and pretend to fidget with it".

Non-balding guys often fix their hair when they see me too:




but unlike



they don't try to hide it. When women fix their hair, it's over in 0.2 seconds.

[Barbero Pelón]

Lol.

I like the visual help 👌😂

[Wiremu]

Haha, great post

[chuck63]

I can definitely relate. Some people ignore my bald head, others give it a second look.  I seem to be hyper aware of others’ reactions when I’m sly. 

[reddog]

I go to the gym most dsys, and walk on the treadmill. Because all the walls are mirrors, I sometimes see other guys checking me out. I assume they are looking at my shiny bald head, so I give it a casual once over.

[max.b]

Just went for a walk (in suburbia, where there are few pedestrians). Some guy saw me from 100' away and started fixing his hair, as if in panic:



and was at it for 10 seconds or more.

I wish I could ask him (and others with similar reactions) why they are doing it, but it seems very rude.

Does anyone else experience this? I see this ALL THE TIME. It's like I moved into some kind of alternate reality after shaving my head.

[Tyler]

What part of Cali?  I live in Nor Cal and don't have this problem at all. It's probably more of a reaction to your confidence than your hair.

[max.b]

You can't really judge someone's confidence from 100' away unless they have bad posture or something.

I've been hyper-aware of body language since I read a book about it when I was a kid.

I think it's some kind of subliminal thing that plants this thought process:  "bald guy" -> "hair" -> "what about my hair?" -> "I must fix my hair". It's just eerie how frequently this works.

[chrisphilly123]

I'm white, 6', no beard (just light stubble), living in California. I don't look like a pro bodybuilder, just your average dude that goes to the gym and doesn't juice.

I don't want to post my face for privacy reasons, but I like to think that I look like this dude, although not as good looking, obviously, with stubble, and I dress casual:



The reactions I got to being bald are roughly like this:

For every dozen under-40 year old women I see while running errands, shopping or going for a walk, a couple will do



and one will do



Before shaving my head, I can't recall a single instance where a female stranger gave me this reaction, now it's a regular occurrence. There should be a word for this gesture in English, but there isn't.

Black men sometimes look at me sideways, like this



but there are not too many of them where I live.

There are a lot of Asians though, including many foreign ones. Asian men stare more than any other group, sometimes pretending not to, but once you've been on the receiving end of their attention more than a dozen times, you notice the same patterns.

White balding guys stare too, but they are much more discrete than "stop in your tracks, pull out your phone and pretend to fidget with it".

Non-balding guys often fix their hair when they see me too:




but unlike



they don't try to hide it. When women fix their hair, it's over in 0.2 seconds.

Have you ever had the situation where a blading dude, sick ass hair,  notices your head and LOOKS like he wants to talk but he's too afraid to start a conversation? I get that a lot.

[max.b]

Yeah, balding guys stare, usually discretely, as I mentioned, but I don't get the feeling where that they want to start a conversation as a general rule.

Right after I first shaved I had really sick tan lines, so that got even more attention. When I grew a goatee on top of that was my scariest, probably. A woman screamed and dropped her shopping bags when the elevator doors opened. LOL. I shaved it off soon after.

[max.b]

Ha! Looks like I'm not the only one after all:

I live in a mostly black neighborhood and get strange looks from people when walking around. I just make sure that I'm extremely kind to everybody. How you act makes a larger impression than how you look.