GRIEVING FOR YOUR HAIR LOSS, STAGE 3 BARGAINING (Part 1)
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 3: Bargaining.


“Regrets, I have a ton”

After you’ve come through the rage, and you begin realizing what awaits you, it’s only natural to start lamenting the times you’ve taken your hair for granted. You’ll also think about the times you may have inadvertently caused the hair loss by your reckless behavior. Don’t worry; it’s a normal part of the grieving process. You have to go through this before you reach acceptance.

Of course, years from now you’ll laugh at your stupidity during this stage, but we’re not going to do that. You have enough problems.

Was it something I said?

We hear that one a lot, as if it was the complaining about your hair while you had it that inadvertently caused the hair loss. Trust us; God isn’t sitting there in Heaven keeping a tote board of hair whiners to smite with his vengeance. You logically know this is true, but it won’t stop you from remembering the times you….

• Bitched about the hair in your eyes
• Complained about the length of time it took to dry your hair
• Whined about the wind mussing your hair
• Bitched about your sweaty hair on a hot day
• Complained about your haircut because ‘they didn’t cut enough’
• Whined at the difficulty in maintaining the ‘Flock of Seagulls’ doo

What would have happened if you hadn’t said any of those things? Would God have allowed you to keep your full head of hair well into adulthood? No.

You have male pattern baldness. It’s a genetic thing. It was pre-determined from the time of your birth. There is no nature vs. nurture debate in the scientific community about baldness. You didn’t wake up one morning and decide to be bald.

If you did….well, then screw you. We wish you a lifetime of unhappiness. We hope the President pushes for a constitutional amendment to ban that blasphemous behavior forever.

Was it something I did?

This is the next logical step in your recovery. Up until this point, the only things you’ve lost in your life are things like car keys, wallets, and important papers. The way you’ve always handled loss in the past was by retracing your steps. OK, I lost my hair. Now where did I see it last? Hmmm. What could have caused it to go away? What did I do?

As a service to you, we feel compelled to bring up many of the possibilities that may go through your mind, and debunk them one by one.

I wore a baseball cap too much

Yes, you did. But that’s because you were in denial for quite a long time. The truth is that you started wearing that baseball cap BECAUSE you were losing your hair. Don’t tell us you lost your hair because you wore a baseball cap too much when you were younger. You had to. It was a required part of the little league uniform.

Here’s the bottom line about baseball caps: they don’t cause baldness. Exhibit A: Johnny Damon.

I never learned how to cook

Your hair loss must have been caused the inordinate number of times you used the microwave oven, right? Look at that guy in those frozen dinner commercials—Murray from the “Odd Couple.” He is the only other person you know who microwaves as many dinners as you do, and he’s obviously losing his hair too.

Sorry to point this out, but he’s an actor. He would never touch those frozen dinners with a ten foot pole. A more appropriate comparison would be someone like microwave-popcorn king Orville Reddenbacher. He micro-waved his ass off and still had a full head of hair when he died in his 90’s.

I had braces

Many hair loss sufferers eventually trace their hair loss to the numerous dental X-rays they had in their teen years while they were getting fitted for braces. Those damn dentists with their insistence on knowing exactly where our teeth were and where they would be coming out, they must have X-rayed our hair right off.

Do we really need to point out the flaws in this logic? How old were you when you got your braces? How old were you when your hair started falling out? How many of those dental technicians were bald?

Although we must admit that lead apron does give us pause.

I combed my hair too forcefully

Maybe you got gum stuck in your hair one time and you combed it really hard to get out the gum—so hard that you could feel the hair actually ripping out of your scalp. Think about it: Just a few years later it started coming out in your hairbrush or comb every time you combed. What if you accidentally started combing it at “gum strength” every time you combed your hair after that first time?

Sorry to do this to your rationalization, but here are the cold, hard facts. Joe Bazooka? Fullhead. The Doublemint Twins? Fullheads. Those are gum professionals, and if they haven’t lost their hair, nothing you did with your “gum-strength” combing could have caused your baldness.

I have a very stressful job

This might be the most common reason given by sufferers. Because the hair loss tends to coincide with the entry into the workforce, it is a natural argument to make. There may even be a legitimate case or two of stress-related hair loss. Of course, if you leave your stressful job, shouldn’t your hair be growing back?

Plus, wouldn’t you say that President of the United States is the most stressful job in the world? Take a look at Bill Clinton’s glorious head of hair after serving as President for eight years. It may have gotten gray, but it didn’t fall out.

On the other hand, Clinton had a way of taking the edge off.


God Hates Me

We’ve already proven where the Big Guy stands on hair loss, but our balding brothers inevitably believe that something they said or did caused the hair loss. After years of denial and anger and soul searching, they all eventually come to the only possible explanation: God’s vengeance.

The Big Ten

During this third stage of grieving you will be examining your faith closely. You’ll start to question whether or not you said or did something that incurred God’s wrath. It’s natural. We all get to this point; especially those of us who have been raised in the great Judeo-Christian tradition of guilt and self-blame. You’ll be sitting in a church or synagogue (or near a church or synagogue) one day and someone will make a reference to the ten big rules that are literally etched in stone.

Uh oh.

Thou shall have no other Gods before me.

The 60’s and 70’s were a crazy time. Many of us were blinded by things that we can’t explain today. It’s understandable in retrospect. The country was at war, the man was keeping us down, and we were just rebelling against authority. It happens to every generation. On the other hand, we probably shouldn’t have proclaimed things like “Clapton is God” and/or “Todd is God” just because of the guitar virtuosity of the former and the songwriting talent of the latter. Eric Clapton and/or Todd Rundgren are not God. We know that now.

But God didn’t smite you for thinking that. He directed the smiting at Clapton and Rundgren instead. Look at the evidence. Clapton’s personal life has been a mess—from stealing a Beatle wife, to losing a Beatle wife, to a long heroin addiction. Rundgren’s personal life is like an episode of Desperate Housewives. He thought Liv Tyler was his daughter, and raised her as such. As she grew up, he began to notice some amazing physical similarities to another rock star. Hmmm.

That’s classic smiting, right there.

Thou shall not take the Lord’s name in vain

If you kept a running tally of the number of times you broke this rule, you would really start worrying. Every spring when the girls start wearing their sun dresses, you’re bound to spit out at least one exclamation with His name in it, usually preceded by “Oh my sweet…” When you get cut off in traffic? Hello sin. Hit your thumb with a hammer? Time for confession.

Not to worry. Your anger-laced comments may send you directly to hell after you die, but they didn’t cause your hair loss. Want proof? Eric Idle still has a full head of hair, and he co-wrote an entire movie making fun of Jesus (“Life of Brian”). That was far worse than anything you said in anger to Him.

Keep Holy the Sabbath

This one is probably the easiest to disprove. Turn on the television on a Saturday (if you’re Jewish) or Sunday (if you’re Christian) and watch a football game. Would you say that trying to snuff the life out of your opponent qualifies as “Keeping holy the Sabbath?” Now look at the heads of the players after they take off their helmets. Of the ninety players in uniform what percentage of them are fullheads?

Case closed.

Honor thy mother and father

There are some fullheads out there who make you look like a Boy Scout when it comes to this Commandment. Remember the lovable Menendez brothers? They weren’t very nice to their parents either, but they took it a little further than you ever did. When you pump a few bullets into Dad, there is no “everybody does it” defense that can save you.

Did God smite them by taking away their hair? Well, yes, in this case he did, but even God can only take so much.

Thou shall not kill

This one is a no-brainer. Have you killed anyone? If the answer is no, move on. We’ve heard some of our people claim that they broke this Commandment because they once murdered someone’s reputation, or someone’s hopes and dreams. Please. That’s not murder…that’s being the boss. The following fullheads are actual murderers:

Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Jeffrey Dahmer, Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, Mark David Chapman, and John Wayne Gacy.

Thou shall not commit adultery

Have you seen Bill Clinton lately? Fullhead. Kobe Bryant? Fullhead. Magic Johnson? Fullhead. Jesse Jackson? Fullhead. Jimmy Swaggert? Fullhead. Tommy Lee? Fullhead. How long of a list do you need?

Thou Shall not Steal

This is another one of those rules that everyone breaks. Does taking the company pen home count as stealing? What about that candy bar you took as a kid? What about stealing a joke (we’ve already done that twice in this section), or stealing an idea, or stealing a glance? Yes, those do qualify as stealing, but they definitely aren’t hair-snatching-smite-worthy.

Again, probe a little deeper. John Gotti had a big bushy head of hair. Michael Corleone; great hair. And what about Rickey Henderson? He is all-time steals leader, and still has a full head of hair.

Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor

That’s just a fancy way of saying “Don’t Lie.” Of course you’ve done it. The Pope has done it. The Dali Lama has done it. Ghandi did it. Martin Luther King Jr. did it. Mother Theresa did it. It is, without question, the most commonly broken commandment. So you told the bum that you didn’t have any money on you. Big whoop. So you told your wife that her butt doesn’t look fat in that dress. So what?

You may feel like a big fat liar and think God is smiting you by taking away your hair, but think about how many times Samantha and Darren Stevens bore false witness against poor Mrs. Kravitz in Bewitched. Every single week they lied to this poor woman. When she tried to tell the truth to other people about the wacky goings-on in the Stevens household, they called her a liar. That’s far worse than anything you’ve done, and both Darren’s had nice hair. Samantha had a great head of hair too.
God doesn’t smite liars with hair loss, he just cancels their show.

Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s goods

If you really sat down and listed the goods you coveted over the years, we can see how easily you could convince yourself that God has decided to smite you with hair loss for your evil coveting. As a matter of fact…don’t you spend every moment of every day coveting your neighbor’s hair? Oh my…(rule 2) Gosh! Maybe you really were smitten.

Think about that for a second.

Is God really the kind of deity that would use reverse psychology? If he wanted you to stop coveting, would he really take away something that makes you covet more? He’s not trying to trick us. That’s why he only gave us ten rules. Our pea-brains can’t handle more than that.


Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s wife

Even Jimmy Carter does this, remember? He admitted that he had lust in his heart when he ran for President in 1976. The man is in his 80s now and still has a wonderful head of hair. Think about this for a moment. Would the MILF websites be making gazillions of dollars if this Commandment wasn’t being broken time after time after time? You aren’t contributing all of those gazillions by yourself (although you are contributing quite a bit). There are many others doing the same thing as you—and many of them have full heads of hair.

Of course, they also have hair on their palms. And they can’t see too well anymore. But those are far more traditional God-smiting techniques.

Have we convinced you yet?

Surely we’ve done what we said we were going to do. You can’t possibly believe that God has decided to smite you for breaking one of his “etched in stone” rules by taking away your hair. Congratulations! You are slowly but surely working your way through this Stage.

On the other hand, you still have a ways to go. You still haven’t done what this Stage promised you would do: Bargain.

We'll tackle that problem next month.