ABOUT MEN

By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer

I have a confession to make, and it feels so unclean. I've been lusting after hair: thick, long, hair.

Anyway, this is the thing: No matter how old you are, it never gets any easier being bald.

Lots of things define a man — clothes, bulging biceps, the vixen he knew in high school — but hair is high on the list.

It's a statement. It's power. And you miss it when it's gone.

A male lion is the king of the jungle, right? He has a mane. Imagine him with a receding hairline. Not a pretty sight.

Hair envy isn't limited to men, but I think it's worse for bald guys. What else would drive a man to have hair plugs sewn into his head? Talk about your field of dreams.

For those of you with hair, I can tell you that growing accustomed to being bald is like aging gracefully. Even if you can't do it, everyone around you expects you to — and that makes it harder.

A friend of 20 years, a woman, said recently, "You know, I don't think I can picture you with hair."

I produced a photograph.

Another friend looked at it, said, "It's a wig."

When I told my daughters I once had hair, they didn't believe me. The little darlings have even more trouble with the fact that my hair fell past my shoulders and was beach-bum blonde instead of dirt brown with a touch of gray.

I showed them a photograph taken when I was 18.

"I'm the one on the right, girls. The other person is my dog."

They didn't buy it, teasing, "That's someone else, Dad. Face it, you're bald. You've always been bald."

I end up feeling nostalgic about my hair, daydreaming about the wind flowing through it as if I was driving a convertible instead of a four-door Honda with supermarket cart dings in the doors. Hair so good-looking that I walked taller, ran faster, entered rooms with the confidence of a Greek god.

Of course, I'm sometimes reminded that being bald isn't all that bad. I've been partially consoled by friendly remarks such as, "Isn't it true that bald guys are just dripping with testosterone?"

And there are a lot of cool bald guys, or so Mrs. G. tells me. She ran down a list once — but I noticed that she didn't mention my name.

Type "bald actors" into an Internet search engine, she suggested. I did so. Once past the pop-up window advertising hair-growth products, I found Patrick Stewart at the top of the list. Hey, the guy was captain of a starship. Pretty Greek god-like, if you ask me.

Mrs. G. says I'm supposed to be more than the sum of my hair. I thought that was profound until I realized the tally wouldn't be a high number. But she doesn't seem to mind that I'm bald. Never has, as far as I can tell.

Neither do my daughters. They figure it's normal. For them, that's the way I've always been. Sounds nice, doesn't it?

But I don't care.

I want my hair.

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.