A tale of whiskers and facial fuzz fashion….
A few weeks ago, it occurred to me that I had never grown a beard or even a moustache. Not even a stubbly goatee! While the hair on my head was quite long (and I was fortunate enough to still have it all), my facial hair on the other hand had never been allowed to pass the early stubble stage.
The seed is implanted…
This all came about at the end of my first trip to the UK with Dani since finishing work. We went to visit an old friend of mine and were discussing his brother who is currently working away in Azerbaijan. My friend was talking about Skyping his brother in Baku. Then he mentioned, somewhat surprised, that his brother had grown a beard for the first time. Well, it is certainly the “in” look with lots of men of all ages now sporting a full face of whiskers. Yet I had never had the inkling to stop shaving for more than two days (max).
Why no beard?…
The reason? Well, I just hate not having a clean face. The whole thought of stubble, face fur and definitely a full on beard & mussy thing that is currently all the rage just doesn’t interest me. The way I see it there is something not right about watching a man with a full-on Grizzly Adams look drinking a beer and getting the frothy ale caught up in the facial hair. Even worse when they then suck it back out. No. It’s enough to put me off a beer.
Other reasons were that my facial hair was never the quickest growing and being fair haired it was not the darkest. I suppose I always thought it would never look right on me. Now that I am older there are a lot of grey (OK white!) whiskers. I had resigned myself to the fact that if I did grow a beard it would be more like Father Christmas than one of the trendy hipsters that seem to be all over the magazines these days.
The decision is made…
That conversation with my friend coincided with my running out of shaving foam. Of course I could have bought some more but I didn’t. I thought I would leave it until we returned to Madrid when I would shave again. Then during the flight home, whilst stroking the longer than usual stubble on my chin, I made the conscious decision to let it grow for a couple of weeks at least and see how it looked. I also wanted Dani to have a photograph with his hairy-faced old man. Funny how little Dani could have such a big influence on this decision.
I am more than a little surprised at how little it has bothered me. There are some patchy bits but I can see that with a little more growth these areas will be more or less filled in. There are also obvious white patches. Nothing I can do about that of course as it is probably just age related.These may well blend in more with the darker hair as it continues to develop. We shall see. But how long will all that take and how much longer can I stand it?
To be continued…