A Beard of Failure: The Confessions from The Many-Whiskered Man
The mark of a true man is fashionable yet again… and that means doom for the rest of us. Every boy knows one trait all “manly men” possess and it’s not the thick plaid shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbow. Nor is it the voluminous chest hair that seems to find daylight through every button-up shirt. It isn’t the worn and faded blue jeans or the callouses that have overtaken the sausage-like fingers on a pair of burly hands. I am of course referring to the glorious thick beard that every boy thinks of when imagining himself in the future.
No matter the build of the man, the ability to grow a beard is an automatic uptick in one’s “manliness rating”. Beards are a staple of many of our favorite action heroes, sports legends, and historical figures. In fact, the only man that has risen above the need for a beard is Fabio. Every picture of God requires a beard, but even the Almighty falls short to Fabio.
I come from a line of men where beards are grown during commercial breaks. Every generation seems to take their father’s mutant-like ability to grow a beard and evolves to form another branch on the beard bearer’s Hall of Fame. You won’t find any patchy beards in the line of Fuller Men; you will only find full, luscious, bountiful beards that make both men and women swoon. I’ve seen grown men bow to the awesomeness that my father has had bestowed unto his face and as a child I would walk proudly behind him; assuming some of his manliness was visually enhancing my own physical features.
I never thought much about the beard I would have as an adult. It was an obvious fact that the only thing keeping me from being the next beautifully bearded Fuller was my own choice to keep a clean, shaven face.
I saw kids in middle school struggle to grow facial hair. The sad part was how they clung to the few hairs that were there. Then I saw my peers in high school let their patchy, emaciated, sad excuse for a beard grow with reckless abandon. It was obvious that many of them saw the ability to grow whiskers as enough to check-off the beard column in their manliness book. I knew better, but sometime during my junior year of high school I realized that I still didn’t need to shave my face. There was nothing to shave.
In my pride of the beard that was “yet to come”, it began to dawn on me that I couldn’t even grow whiskers like the boys I mocked in passing. It should’ve become apparent to me upon my 10th birthday that something was wrong when I did not receive my first razor. At age 16, my chin was bare; resembling the smoothness that it had upon first leaving my mother’s womb. Nothing had changed. Puberty’s cruelest joke was forgetting to finish its job and bequeath me the beard that is my birthright! I had done everything correct up to that point: I was a good student, I had my license, I was an athlete, I drank enough milk to earn myself a national ad campaign. What did I do wrong? Then it dawned on me: I’m also half-Korean.
My mother’s warrior genes were waging a war inside of me. Out of the many battles that were fought within myself, the asian side had won the fight for follicle dominance. I should have seen the signs earlier. I didn’t have much body hair. Many people assumed that I shaved my legs and arms. I had a beautiful head of hair, eyebrows, and eyelashes that could sweep the floor if a broom was not available. How could this be? I began to worry. I was only sixteen but now the stress of being forced to bare a child-like face no matter my preference was maddening. I felt robbed and as many of my friends’ beards filled-out, I began to feel left out and left behind.
I soon started to realize that I was feeling self-conscious about it when I was with my dad, too. You see, there’s a little-known fact that beards attract other beards. So anytime I was with my dad and his friends, all of them had a similar lush mane that left me feeling forever child-like in their presence.
In a spurt of desperation, I planned just to go through the motions and maybe everything else would fall into place. So I went out and purchased my own 3-blade razor. I wanted a straight razor but with nothing to shave, my fear was the blade would then take the skin since it needed hungered to cut something. Two or three times a week I would lather up with shaving gel and shave very carefully with my razor. My mother scolded me early on in this process, telling me that if I shave then the hair will only grow faster. She thought this would deter me from shaving, but I saw this as the encouragement I needed. The beard I yearned for was close - I just needed to coax the hairs out of hiding!
After my junior year of high school, nothing had changed. My face was still bare and months of “going through the motions” resulted in nothing for me. These asian genes were tough and they wanted me to have a baby-face forever! The choice of what my face would bear was out of my hands.
Going into my senior year of high school, I began to accept my face’s fate and know that I was not going to follow in my father’s footsteps as being the beacon of manliness that a great beard affords you. During my senior year, I let the expectations and fantasies I had as a child fade away. I knew what I was and that was a soon-to-be man. Not having a beard wasn’t going to keep me from becoming an adult. The future that awaited me was college, health issues, and crippling debt - like everyone else. And like many others, I would have to get used to the cold winds that a clean, shaven face brings you. I was finally at peace. Everything was good.
And then the hipsters emerged…
Hipsters have been around since the 1990’s, but became mainstream in the 2000’s. They started off pretty harmless: riding single-speed bicycles, worshipping coffee and espresso, and dressing like trapped in a silent film or at the 1960’s Woodstock Festival. I had friends that were drawn to the hipster lifestyle and like veganism, it was easy to ignore (as long as they didn’t try to convert me).
Then one day I noticed an ad for beard oil online. Beard oil? Was this a legitimate advertisement or a snake oil salesman casting a larger net into the interwebs; hoping to reel in young and vulnerable hipsters thinking such a thing was a necessity. In high school I might’ve fallen for such an item. Back then my hopes of having a beard on my face made me susceptible to purchasing a myriad of things; the actual benefits of those items were irrelevant. The placebo effect was all I needed if only its powers actually worked some magic on me. But I was older and wiser now. I felt no urge to force a beard.
But like many in my generation, there is a need to force others into your lifestyle. Many feel this will validate and bring importance to their own lives. This is a flawed concept, but these are the same people that will do anything for “likes” and “clicks” on social media. Someone willing to put their life in danger for a nonsensical form of currency is not someone you want to negotiate with. Reason and logic will not work on them. Avoidance is the only option and hopefully enough people will ignore them and they will one day go away.
Unfortunately, this did not happen. The hipsters only grew in numbers and power. Coffee & espresso became a lifestyle, denim & combat boots were all over my college campus, and to make things worse: beards were back and bigger than ever!
This wasn’t like before: beards were once an attribute that many people had because regular shaving was not an option and the early stages of a beard is uncomfortable for many. But now, in the world of selfies and social media, beards are a fashion statement. Specific tools and oils are not only available, but they are marketed as essential to the self-care of a bearded man.
Now, I’m in my early 30’s. My face is just beginning to grow facial hair but it does not resemble anything like a beard. During the 2020 COVID-19 Lockdown, I let my facial hair run wild for almost 3 weeks just to see what would happen. The results were devastating. I resembled a cat-man whose whiskers were not only on the sides, but all over the lower half of his face and neck.
It was the longest my facial hair had ever been and it was a stark realization that war that raged within me during the vestiges of my puberty left real casualties. My face showed the results of the war and seeing its true horror in the mirror prompted an immediate shaving. I needed a clean face in order to resemble other humans.
I have now accepted who I truly am: I am the Many-Whiskered Man. And although beards are now bigger and more fashionable than ever, I do not long to have such a feature anymore. I have always been proud of my genetic makeup. Being half-Korean and half of whatever my dad is has given facets to my life that are unique to only myself. Outside of the casualty that is my facial hair, the mix has been good to me. Maybe if I’m lucky, I will be in my 70’s with a thin, gray mustache & beard combo that flows down to my chest, similar to Pai Mei in Kill Bill: Vol. 2.
This may not have been the face I imagined as a child, but this is the one I have been given. My dad now gets mistaken for Santa Claus since his beard went white, but I don’t desire a beard anymore. Now I only hope to keep the bristled demon within me away. I’ve seen what 2+ weeks of growth looks like. I will do my best to make sure that the world does not have to quarrel with the man I might become if it were to grow any more than that.
To my friends and family, I ask you this: if I ever fall into a coma or am unable to move for a lengthy amount of time, keep my face clean. Once the whiskers emerge and overtake my face, I will not resemble the man you know. At that point I will be lost to the foliage, similar to the pyramids in the Yucatan which were once so overgrown that no one even knew they resided there. Please protect me from myself. I mustn’t be allowed to grow a beard for fear of what the end result will be. I am a man without a beard and that is for the benefit of all that may look upon my face.
I hope my story can help shed light on why some people keep a hairless face. Maybe they are doing it purely because of preference, but some might be doing it to keep the nightmares at bay. Think before you mock someone - there is always more to the story than you know.
Sincerely,
The Many-Whiskered Man
