Will I Go Bald?

NOTE: This was written a few months ago before I picked up blogging again. So I’m even closer to male pattern baldness than before!



Sometimes it’s a bit scary how intuitive Google’s suggestions in can be as you begin typing in your query. Either it’s the fact that we have been together for several years now and Google understands me or that I’m bonding with the average likes of humanity. I suppose there’s comfort to be had for the latter.

Being a Biology major, this thought of balding has been in the back of my head for some time. I have taken note of previous girlfriends’ father’s hair control and I am beginning to believe that perhaps this will be an unconscious attribute I find attractive in the opposite sex. Female’s Father’s Hair. The FFH. “Hey Jer, how’s life?” “Good, dating someone. She’s pretty awesome.” “How’s the FFH?” If anything, I hope that I can protect my sons.

At the supple age of 22, this reality is (hopefully) far off on the horizon. I believed that so long as I kept my concern private and rationalized a more optimistic outcome, I might be spared. This all came crashing down the other night when I went out with my family to meet my mother’s relatives. Now I know my mom’s siblings and the various loin-product that they bring along with them, but I have never met her aunts and uncles. The uncles were balding if not bald, and after a cousin of dear mother said how her dad and his brothers have the same haircut, my father wryly slid in to say “that’s your future boys.” Thank you dad.

Although I never had much hope. My dad’s dad did have thick locks on his head til he died, and this sustained my optimism – until I learned more about genetics. Dad’s dad is a nonplayer in the hair game. It’s mom’s dad. And let’s just say, my mom’s family are balders. They come from a long line of balders. Some say that it skips a generation – here it is so ingrained in the family that we’re churning shiny spots in every litter. Perhaps this is what we see in our future mates. Can one man stand up against generations of balders and say “enough is enough!”? Ladies, don’t be alarmed if I want to meet your parents soon after we begin dating – I have a few curiosities I need to satisfy.

Anyways, back to Google. After this enlightening night at dinner I went home to talk to Google. Google (I’m still up in the air on the pronoun to use, so we’ll stick with formal, third party names until then) sent me to a site where I could run some numbers and get a prognosis. After putting in my details (age, stage of hair, stress levels, heredity), I found out that I have a “Quite Possible” chance of losing all/most of my hair. They were even kind enough to give me my age when it’ll be all gone (I draw a few issues with this. When are you bald? When the back meets the front? Perhaps if someone has to squint when holding conversation with you?). I’m expected to have no hair when I turn 62! I even changed the stress levels to nonexistent (not true) – no change in the age. NOTE – Apparently I have until 63. I’m almost 23 so I changed my age and bought myself another year. Hizzah!

One comfort is that I can have extreme stress and it doesn’t change the numbers either. Apparently stress is not a factor. Good for me I suppose.

In any case, I have forty years until I have a dome top. I figure that it begins to become pretty apparent in 16-20 years that I’m balding? So I have about 16 more years to find that woman to marry. I guess that is more time than I can really fathom at this moment. If I had a choice, I suppose I hope it is sudden without apologies. To morbidly associate it with executions (which, in a sense it is, my hair life will be over – I maintain that I wrongfully sentenced), I hope that my baldness is similar to a hanging. It happens suddenly and completely. I don’t want a lethal injection bald experience where it takes a while and I am unaware of what is going on. Please no electric chair though. I have the image of my hair gumming up the shower sink and me freaking out with that association.