Words on Beard

I was just talking with a friend about my former beard, which I had for ages, if not eons.

He said "You must miss it, now that they're back in style."

I said, "No, I miss it because a) it was comfortable and b) I'm inherently lazy.  The fact that they're a fad now is ample reason for me to not miss it at all.  That and the fact that my wife prefers to kiss a mouth unencumbered by hair."

"She is more than enough motivation to stay clean shaven."

"Don't I know it, brother."

I started growing the beard the day after I graduated high school.  Were it permitted, I probably would've started growing it in high school. Being in the (very) dead center of West Texas, it most assuredly was not permitted. We still had dress codes and grooming rules and Vice Principals with 2lb oak paddles.  So despite being the only slightly hippy-ish liberal, vegetarian agnostic in a town of 10,000, I remained clean-shaven.

I started the beard because, yes, I was lazy.  Some hair is always easier to tend to than zero hair, rather hair that had to be maintained like it were zero.  Plus, the year I graduated, the legal drinking age was raised from 18 to 19, and then a few years later to 21.  By making me look a couple of years older, my beard saved me the trouble of getting carded though college and insured a steady flow of beer for studying purposes.  Definitely a bonus, given my very baby-ish face at the time and no you can't see a picture.  They vanished mysteriously in a fire.

I kept the beard for 20 odd years. It lasted the duration of my first marriage, with a year or two to spare on each end.  Once I realized it was turning grayer much faster than the rest of my head, I knew it was only a matter of time before it vanished.  I don't care about - or fear - the gray, but I don't want the top and bottom halves of my head to look like they're 20 years apart. No mis-matched Mr. Potato Head for me, thank you.  What cemented the beard's demise was the fact that the woman who would eventually become my second/current/final wife very much preferred not getting stubble burn while kissing. Me? I very much preferred kissing to not kissing. Zip-zop, the beard was gone.  

It's not that it was ever unmanaged.  I kept it neat all the time and relatively short most of the time.  It certainly never made me look - or smell - like a homeless lumberjack.  I'll be candid - whenever I see a beard like that, my first thought is that the guy is trying really damn hard to convince people he's got enough testosterone to get the job done.  My second thought is that, either he's in a long term relationship or in no relationship at all, because most women prefer to keep a whisker's length away from guys with beards & mustaches. Studies show that, if it's a rarity, it's more attractive to women than otherwise, but if every third face you see is bearded (and most especially, unmanaged), then not so much.