Hey, I Noticed You’re Dealing with Something
By Owen Clarke
I was at a bar with a friend of a friend a few months back. At one point, he leaned in close to me, half-whispering, like he was about to tell me a secret.
“Hey man, I can tell you’re dealing with something,” he said.
I was confused for a minute, until he pointed to the crown of my head. “I can tell you’re struggling with the same thing I am, and just so you know, there’s options. Hair loss, you know?”
He explained something about finasteride, and that it hadn’t had any negative side effects for him—his girlfriend, standing next to him—winked suggestively. I couldn’t even tell he’d had hair loss, so I guess the stuff must have worked.
Initially, the comment pissed me off. It felt like the equivalent of going up to someone you think is overweight and telling them, “Hey, I can tell you’re struggling with your weight. I used to be fat, too. Have you tried a diet?”
Also, we’d also both had a few drinks, and I wasn’t particularly clear-headed. So my response was something along the lines of: “Maybe if I was a pussy like you it’d be a problem. It doesn’t mean shit to me.” But despite my huffing and puffing, the remark really did bother me.
I wasn’t sure why. Was I dealing with something?
A Constant Reminder
I’ve been losing hair off and on since I was about 16 years old. My hair’s been quite thin at times, then grown back, then thinned again. It’s never progressed to a definitive state of baldness, more just a chronic thinning. I suspect the hair loss is due to a combination of health issues and stress because it started around the same time I developed chronic muscular pain and neuropathy. But with hair loss, you can never be sure.
Initially, my hair loss bothered me pretty deeply. I certainly had more pressing, non-superficial health concerns, but hair loss felt like an outward sign of the (invisible) physical pain I was experiencing on the inside. Also, losing hair at 16 is a bit more concerning than losing hair at 35 or 40. I wanted to do something to stop it. I tried a few supplements, a few injections, a few oils.
However, I never really stuck with any of them long enough to give them a fair shot. Desire to halt my thinning hair was ultimately tempered by my greater need to find a remedy for the widespread muscular and neurological pain in my body. I had dozens of other symptoms that were much more worrying, and so was constantly aware of the insignificance of hair loss in the grand scheme of things.
When I was 20, I shaved my head bald. My hair was now thinning more aggressively, and though it was far from “middle-aged sex offender combover” level, it seemed like it was now obvious to others that I had thinning hair, whereas before it was something that only I really noticed.
The last thing I wanted was for someone to think I was trying to hide that I was losing my hair—or that I cared—so I shaved my head. I went on to shave my head several times in the next few years, and I never had a major problem with it. Luckily I wasn't one of those guys who shave their heads only to find they look like a peanut or a deflated basketball. My head was a bit colder than usual, and I certainly preferred having hair. All told, though, it was OK.
At first, it felt like shaving my head was the solution. It was the perfect way to prove to everyone that I didn't care, and a one-and-done fix. Shave it. Boom. The problem with shaving your head, however, is that it’s a constant requirement. It’s not the permanent fix it appears to be. It’s regular work. It’s more than regular. If you don’t shave every single week, your hair grows out a bit, and it looks like it’s thinning again.
You’re back to square one.
In the end, shaving my head made me think about hair loss more than I ever had before. When I shaved, I was constantly reminded of why I was doing what I was doing. It was a decision I had to make over and over and over again, week after week. Shaving felt like the ultimate manifestation of caring about my hair.
The Caring Conundrum
My physical health improved a few years ago. I no longer deal with 90% of the nerve and muscle pain I used to, and the remainder is manageable. Around the same time my health improved, I stopped shaving my head. It’s not that my hair got thick again. It’s as thin as it ever was, but I haven’t cut it since the last time I shaved my head, around three years ago. I occasionally ask friends or family if my hair looks thin (i.e. if I need to shave my head again), and everyone always says no. That’s that.
That’s probably what bothered me so much about that interaction in the bar a few months ago. It had been a long time since anyone said anything about my hair—so long that I hadn’t even really remembered I was “struggling” with hair loss. Until that interaction, I thought my days of “dealing” with hair loss were over, even though my hair was still visibly thin. That remark felt like proof that everyone was just being nice when they told me my hair wasn’t thin. Telling me what I wanted to hear.
In the following weeks, my hair was on my mind more than it had been in years. At first, I told myself this was simply because I was pissed about a rude remark, and more so, what it implied. Sure, this guy was the only person who had noticed my hair was thinning, assumed it bothered me, then said something about it. How many other people were thinking it and not saying it? How many other people were walking around on the street going, Man, that guy must be really bummed about his hair. I feel so bad for him.
Regardless of the implications, the interaction didn’t warrant the amount of thought I was giving it. At best, it was someone trying to be nice, offering advice based on personal experience. At worst, it was a friend of a friend, someone I probably only interact with once every few years, making an underhanded jab while we were both drunk.
But it continued to bother me. It felt like I was presented with a simple truth and an impossible question. I don’t care about my hair. But aside from shaving my head bald again—which would be admitting that I do care—how can I walk around with thinning hair without other people thinking that I’m “dealing with something?”
While writing this piece, I realized that this truth and question could not exist in the same universe. They were paradoxical. The fact that I was asking myself that question was proof that, for all my bravado, I did care about my hair.
It was just another hair loss paradox, like shaving your head. If you don’t give a shit, you shave your head bald—but then you have to give enough of a shit to continuously shave your head. If you don’t care about your hair, don’t care. But then you can’t care whether other people think you care or not.
It’s rather obvious, from an outside perspective, that this sort of banal mind-warping could only be undertaken by someone who cares.
But maybe caring isn’t such a bad thing. Stressing about how you look is kind of lame, but I’ll always care about my appearance a bit. I’m a human being, and (hopefully) a functioning member of modern society. That’s why I wear jeans and t-shirts instead of burlap sacks, why I shave my face in the morning, why I put on a collared shirt when I go to a job interview.
Right now, my hair is pretty long and pretty thin. Some people might see that and think I’m struggling with something. They’re only right about that if I care that they think that.
Now, I don’t think I do.
It’s hard to explain why. I didn’t have some lighting bolt of epiphany, or mediate on the issue for a thousand hours and achieve enlightenment. But I did realize that all I’ve ever wanted—since I started losing my hair at 15—is for people to believe that I don’t care about it. That’s why I’ve never tried finasteride, or invested significant time and money into any other hair loss treatment. I didn’t (and don’t) care about the hair loss itself. I cared about what I thought it indicated about me. That I was dealing with something.
That’s also why I couldn’t consistently keep my head shaved bald. I didn’t have a problem with how I looked bald, but waking up every day and shaving my head was the embodiment of a Sisyphean struggle. The epitome of “dealing” with something, each and every morning. Of caring.
I’ve spent a long time pondering this piece, trying to uncover why exactly I don’t give a shit anymore. Several of the other members of Dead Foot have asked for a clearer answer. I’m not sure I have one—and maybe that’s unsatisfying. All I can say is, once you tell yourself you don’t care—instead of telling yourself that you want other people to realize you don’t care…
Well, then you really don’t.
After all, it’s not so different from someone looking at me wearing my favorite t-shirt (which depicts a skateboarding pepperoni pizza slice yelling “Rad!”) and thinking I look pretty goofy.
I probably do.
Owen Clarke is a freelance journalist, motorcyclist, and mountaineer, and also the founder of this publication. You can find his work on his website.
