GRIEVING FOR YOUR HAIR LOSS-- DENIAL (Part 4)

By Dave Stern (with Rick Kaempfer)

By now, scientists and psychologists all seem to agree with Elizabeth Kubler Ross’ five stages of grieving: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

For some reason, however, nobody has ever applied these five stages to men with male pattern baldness. We’re also losing something close to us that has been a part of our lives forever…our hair. But does society, or science, or psychology care about us?

No.

That’s why we’re going to spend 2007 dedicating one column a month to helping balding men through the stages of grieving. This month we’re focusing on Stage 1 Denial, and the specific scourge known as: Isolation.


You’re Not the First

Isolation seems like such a logical solution to the problem of hair loss, but we have to believe that anyone who chooses it hasn’t really thought through the process. History is strewn with men who believed that isolation was the only answer.

The Jews

You can understand the appeal of Moses’ pitch to his (largely balding) people. We just go that-a-way and we’ll get to the Promised Land.

“Away from the taunting and mocking? Lead the way, Moses.”

But Moses wasn’t exactly Mr. Rand McNally. After about twenty years of chewing sand and peeling burnt skin from their bald pates, you would think they would have given up. But no. Why not? Were they running toward something or away from it? They did another twenty years of wandering. What was the turning point? It might have been the subtle taunt from Moses to his balding followers when he “parted” the Red Sea. That was uncalled for.

The Great Explorers

The Age of Exploration was the time between the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance. This was a dark time for bald people because the wig had not yet become popularized. Is it a coincidence that this is also a time that seemingly healthy men volunteered to go on boats without the slightest notion of where they might land? Classic isolation.

• Christopher Columbus vowed to prove the world was round, even if it meant he might sail off the end of a flat Earth. That suicide mission didn’t turn out so well for him. He hit land.
• Magellan said he would sail around the world. He obviously thought that voyage would never end, but it did when his men got sick of his whining and killed him during a mutiny.
• Ponce De Leon didn’t even bother coming up with a lame excuse like Columbus or Magellan. His stated claim says it all: He was looking for the Fountain of Youth. You have to love the ironic place he hit land: Florida.
• Marco Polo went looking for the Orient. Is that far enough away for you?
• Amerigo Vespucci, the man after whom both South America and North America are named, spent his years at sea “calculating the circumference of the Earth.” Sorry, Amerigo. There is no escape.

Realizing the purpose of these “explorations” makes it a little easier to understand what happened when the Great Explorers eventually landed on the shores of the New World. It doesn’t excuse the killing and the spreading of disease, but it explains it.

The American Explorers

The quest for isolation and escape didn’t end with the arrival and colonization of the New World. Even after the U.S. became a country, our balding brothers faced their own moments of truth when some nice young gal at the pillories or the latest Minuet-social glanced in the wrong direction repeatedly. For some, it meant embracing the wig. For others, it was: “Let’s see how big this country really is.” It’s big. But it’s not big enough.

• Daniel Boone went into the Appalachian Mountains thinking they would never end. Whoops.
• Lewis & Clark volunteered to go deep into the wilderness “looking for a passage to the Pacific Ocean.” Mmm Hmm. Don’t think that Fullhead President Jefferson wasn’t cracking up when he sent them a female guide; Sacagawea. Sacagawea is actually the Native American word for ‘that beaver hat isn’t fooling anyone fellas.’
• Zebulon Pike went to northern Minnesota looking for the source of the Mississippi in 1805. Right. A man volunteering to go to northern Minnesota. Nothing suspicious about that.

Within a hundred years or so, balding man realized that there was no place to hide within the continental United States. That just sent him on a more extreme course.


The Poles

We aren’t referring to the countrymen of our all-time favorite Pope. We’re referring to the most extreme examples of Earthly isolation. History has recorded their names for other reasons, but we know the real reason these three famous men spent their days and nights in the most Godforsaken parts of our planet.

• Commander Peary, the first man credited with reaching the North Pole, was a balding man.
• Roald Amundson, the first man credited with reaching the South Pole, was a balding man.
• Santa Claus, the only resident of the North Pole, is a bald man.

The stories of the men who first reached the Poles are sad enough, but the story of the man who chose to remain there has to be the saddest story of all. It’s textbook isolation. Over the years his isolation has gotten so bad that he only comes out one night year. It’s enough to break to your heart.


Space

Men spent years training for this chance. They put their lives on the line. The space suit was tempting enough; it covered what they wanted to cover. But the location of the voyage was the real tip-off to their actual motivation. Think we’re being unfair to our heroic astronauts? Get out your astronaut scorecards.

• Neil Armstrong—balding.
• John Glenn—bald.
• Buzz Aldren—balding.
• Jean Luc Picard—bald.
• James T. Kirk—hairpiece.

Lessons Learned

What have our bald ancestors taught us about using Isolation to avoid confronting your balding head? There is no place to hide.

Where are you going to go? A deserted island? It’s no better there. Gilligan, the Skipper, and the Professor all had full heads of hair and couldn’t get anywhere with Ginger and Mary Ann. You would have had the same luck—unless they secretly love men with peeling scalps.

Are you going to hide out in the tundra of Siberia or the most remote portion of Greenland? Fine, but remember that there are two definitions of ‘blue balls’ and you’re going to experience both of them there.

Of course, in this 24 hour delivery world, there is no reason to go to extremes. You can just hide out in your house or apartment all day long without having to interact with any other humans. Try that if you want, but at least one night a year another guy just like you will come down your chimney uninvited. And if he doesn’t get his milk and cookies, he’s no less judgmental than anybody else.