#also....does being bald necessarily make someone unattractive?

[napoleonic-sexyman-tournament]

I know it’s not quite time for the third bracket yet but seeing how it has tsar Alexander I vs the formidable Thomas Alexandre Dumas I think we should let Sasha use all the advantage he can get (probably not enough to stay in the tournament but maybe to not be quite so thoroughly outvoted, he has a sensitive heart guys, please)

So if you take suggestions, I propose one of the following portraits to be used in the poll, as it is in my opinion some of the best impressions we have of his younger years:

His early baldness was tragic but I think we should let him ride this one out in all his femboy glory. As a treat.

We will take your request.

Though I've avoided that portrait because I truly sincerely think he looks like a cockatoo

[loki-zen]

re: hair loss, at what point as a man should you just shave it? I have/had long wavy Matthew McConaugh-hair, and I’m decently emotionally invested in the compliments I used to get. Outside of wanting to look good to women I don’t super care though, that and that my dad always wanted to grow his hair long but it didn’t work out for him, so I’m kinda doing it for both of us.

anyway, I’m on the road to approaching the “woody harrelson at the beginning of Natural Born Killers” hairline, and it’s a struggle. Been on finasteride for like 8 months, and I’m pretty sure it’s making me depressed, plus it does weird stuff to your cum, which is both gross and frightening in its implications. I had good results with rogaine, should probably start that again, regardless of what I do.

At what point does a man become sexier with the buzz cut a la Jason Statham, every Russian guy, etc?

it’s also frustrating because there’s so many memes out there about “creepy balding guys”, like it’s just this shorthand for being a coomer or a serial sexual harasser or what have you. I could live with “ugly balding guys”, there have been times in my life when I was hot and times I was ugly, I’m able to cope with that. But creepy just really sucks. I had a lot of female friends in college, and some women I’m very close to were victims of sexual violence, and so I’m probably hyper-sensitive and afraid of being perceived as predatory in any way. It’s good that I’m aware of the problems, but sometimes I wish I was more ignorant, it’d make it a lot less scary to strike up conversations with new people if I wasn’t crushingly aware of how often women are uncomfortable with men they’ve never met.

(I’m not morlock-Holmes, but I think we have some of the same dating issues)

So first off, it is obviously wrong and bigoted to make assumptions about someone's behaviour or intentions based on what they look like unless we're talking about something very specific and intentional like 'they have nazi tattoos'. If it helps any (I'm not sure it does) I don't think that these people necessarily see a balding guy and think that's a sexual predator so much as they are doing that very schoolyard thing of "we don't like this kind of people (sexual predators) and so we're going to stereotype them as being something we think is unattractive" (you see similar things with fatness and 'neckbeards').

If it is the women you actually know who say these sorts of things (that wasn't clear), it literally might not occur to them that they're making you feel this way because it's just a general-purpose insult to them that's become detached from the actual notion of a person they might know and like who happens to be male and balding.

This sort of talk is actually, if anything, dangerous to potential victims of sexual violence, because the idea that you can somehow spot Creepy Guys and they definitely look different to anyone else will tend to help conventionally attractive guys get away with it!

I don't think there are any hard and fast rules about the hair thing. Lots of guys do look cute with a buzzcut, and it is common (but not universal) in the dominant Anglosphere culture for people to find this more attractive than even very nice hair when that hair has visible male-pattern balding going on. I confess I do have this reaction myself sometimes, but I also find that the more I get to know people the more I see the nicer hair and the less I see the "but it's balding" part, but there are levels that will always look a bit odd to me (eg the shakespeare cut). Which, yknow, isn't actually a reason why people should change their hair, though I imagine you're asking because being attractive to other people is important to you.

Your female irl friends are perhaps best-placed to approximate the sort of views that predominate among the sort of women you're likely to be trying to date, and there are now decent AI tools to give you an idea of what you might look with different hairstyles - maybe try one out, see what you think and ask their advice.

Oh, also, in my personal opinion if your hair is fairly voluminous and past shoulder length you can get away with a receding hairline a lot longer - same with certain careful short but long on top looks, although they can be more fiddly.

[speuradair]

Makoto, Nagito With An S/O Who Has Trichotillomania

Makoto is understandably worried about you when it comes to you trichotillomania

He loves you and he hates to see you in any sort of pain, especially when it’s from something you’re doing to yourself

At first he doesn’t really understand

He knows it’s stress related, but he isn’t sure how you’re mind processes it or how to help you when you’re feeling the compulsion to pull

So he does some research and makes sure to listen to you when you talk about it

He wants to do everything he can to help you out

He doesn’t want his lover to be upset or hurt after all

Makoto would pay special attention to making sure you have something else to do with your hands when you’re stressed or just having more urges in general

Whether it’s a fidget toy or even just his own hand to hold, he’s there to help you out whenever he can

He isn’t always able to stop you before you pull your hair out, but he is very good at keeping you from eating it

He doesn’t want you to make yourself sick

Makoto thinks your hair looks really cool!!

He doesn’t care if it’s not necessarily ‘normal’ for you to have that short of a hair cut, he thinks you look awesome and just as gorgeous as ever

Always makes a point of telling you how attractive you are

Not in a weird or gross way, he just knows you’re self conscious and wants to make sure you know he doesn’t think you’re weird or unattractive at all

If anyone makes any mean comments about you, your hair, or your habit, he calls them out in the most 'Ultimate Hope’s way possible

“H- hey, that’s not okay! They can’t help it, you know! You don’t have to be so mean about it.”

Nagito doesn’t understand it himself, but in a way, he finds it rather interesting

He thinks it’s just another thing that makes you so interesting and unique

That being said though, while he doesn’t think any less of you for doing it, he doesn’t like when you do it

He doesn’t like when you get hurt at all, even if you’re doing it to yourself

Definitely offers to let you pull his hair out instead

Someone as amazing and hopeful like you doesn’t deserve to be in pain, so why not take it out on 'useless trash�� like himself?

When you say no to that, he just shrugs and says that the offer stands whenever you need it

Tell him you just want your hands distracted and gold his hand, or toy with the strings of his jacket, something harmless like that

He’s just as willing to help you that way too

Nagito is better at noticing when you’re about to pull at your hair than Makoto is

He pretty much has his eyes on you at all times anyway, and he’s picked up on the signs that you’re feeling compulsive

Most of the time he’s able to stop you before you actually pull much hair out, but he also makes sure you don’t eat it on the rare occasion that you do

He knows that it could be damaging to your stomach and he can’t let his Hope get sick

Nagito loves your hair!!

It may seem odd, but he loves running his fingers along it

It feels cool

Regardless of how short your hair is or how many bald spots you have, Nagito will always think you’re the most gorgeous, glimmering example of hope he’s ever had the luck to meet

He never shuts up about that, either

He can’t help it, you just make him all mushy and lovey

If anyone makes any nasty comments about you, he’s quick to scold them

“Not cool, (their name)! Nothing about them is weird, especially compared to a worthless nobody like me! I’m so lucky to have someone as amazing as them”