To be completely accurate, could try, should try, and am trying. I recently participated in a lot of therapy, and one of the little side streets of discussion was all about how I had done certain things and been a certain way to comply with an abusers version of me.
I guess you could say I male-groomed myself long before it was a fashionable and trendy thing to do. I was raised in a time when aftershave was splashed all over, and when a man did not have to try … too hard. If you are under thirty, you will have no idea what that meant; okay, under forty.
When I was young, men did not buy or use many potions and lotions; there was soap, and there was not soap.
Suffice it to say that I removed hair, smoothed things, trimmed, and pruned. My discussions around the subject meant I started to question why I do these things and what would happen if I didn’t do these things.
I made the decision to leave everything alone. For the first time in my life, do nothing. See what happens, see how it looks, see how it feels, see how I feel about it.
Then I realised there was something else in this same ballpark that I had never done. I had never grown a beard. I mean, I had skipped shaving; on average, I would shave every 2-4 days; the longest I had ever gone was a week.
I don’t do facial hair. I don’t like it on me, I don’t like it on others. Turns out I had some good reasons. My abuser removed all traces of hair from me, and he himself had facial hair. So it seems it was a lot of training and conditioning from a young age and a healthy level of disgust for all kinds of complicated reasons. So there is that.
I decided to grow a beard. For the first time in my adult life, I would not shave my face. At first, I set myself the target of leaving it for a month. See how it goes. If I can cope, then I will try and leave it for three months. Then it goes.
It doesn’t take a lot of effort to grow a beard. You do less rather than more. You just let it be. I have the added problem that mentally I am battling with a few side issues. There is this background hum of trauma noise urging me to just give in and shave. There is a slight disgust with myself that I am even allowing this to happen.
It makes me look more adult, perhaps more male. It makes me less boy-like and that is the main point. It has layers of unsettling resonance of echoes of things I don’t like thinking about.
Growing a beard is a small thing and I am sure millions of men do it every single day. For me it is a small nudge that has a big impact. It helps me to face things and ask questions and learn new things.
Then there is what I imagine is the normal things that beard growing causes the average male to deal with. The shock of it every time I see my reflection. The way it makes you look far older than you can possibly be.
The realisation that you have an immense amount of very blonde hairs in your beard, almost in certain light it can appear white it is so blonde. It is ok, I am not delusional I know it is grey I just don’t like admitting it.
You develop a peculiar habit of rubbing your chin as if you are pondering and being thoughtful before you speak about anything.
I have quite light and fine hair so at first not that much appears to be happening but as it starts to grow it becomes apparent that you have an actual beard in your face and you worry about how quickly you have started to look like a tramp.
The most annoying things, and I can’t say this strongly enough, you still have to fucking shave. I thought I would be able to hang up my razor and have one less chore to perform.
There is tidying to do, and stray hairs, and the need to take care of this thing you have grown. Apparently, if I keep it, I might need a beard comb, oils, it needs attending to and kept in order.
This will not be happening, I don’t like how it makes me look, I don’t like the feel of it, and I don’t want to keep it.
For now, for all the right reasons and because I choose to, and because I probably have things to learn from the experience, I am growing a beard for the first time.
a blog less ordinary 