Over the past few years I’ve had numerous guy friends complain to me about their receding hair lines, and when I suggest they start using ROGAINE, the reaction is always the same: “No way, I’ll just deal with it.” What a typical male response, no?
“But…I don’t get it…you can STOP the balding from happening,” I’ll say back, and still, the answer is always the same. A big fat no and a big fat change of subject…and usually to something super manly like sports or cooking large amounts of meat on a grill.
Dear Rogaine, my guy friends are just not that into you.
Listen, I get it, men and beauty products are two things that don’t normally go together but, I’m sorry, if I were balding I would do anything (literally anything) to stop it (and I did HERE), but my question is this: WHY? It says something MUCH deeper about the male psyche, and goes way beyond the fact that men don’t like to use a ton of beauty products.
Here’s my theory: Men don’t like to feel helpless and truth be told, male pattern baldness is something that really can’t be prevented and so, helplessness occurs. Again, I get it. I’m thinking that male pattern baldness to men is the equivalent of weight gain to a female…you just don’t got there. If some dude told me that I need to lose 10lbs, I’d shit a brick and whether or not I actually agreed with him wouldn’t even matter because there are some places you just DON’T GO and, for women, weight is that place. So yes, I can conceivably understand why this is a sensitive subject, but men (I’m gonna pretend for a minute that men read my blog- they don’t), we only want to help you. And the difference between hair vs. weight is that hair loss is something you can’t control when you CAN control your weight, to some effect at least.
If you Google the topic, there are TONS and tons of message boards where women are asking if it’s “ok” to buy their husband/boyfriend Rogaine as a gift. I’m literally laughing out loud because even though I’m not in a relationship, even I know that is a TERRIBLE idea. Also, it’s kind of like buying a woman a vacuum for Christmas. NO. If Carrie and Aidan’s fight showed us anything, we know this: if your man DOES want to prevent his hair loss, he DOESN’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT. So if you are lucky enough to have a proactive guy, just be happy and don’t mention it. Let it be the potentially hairy pink elephant in the room and be done with it.
http://youtu.be/I4x61Vnz-Zk
You can stay here with your boxes of shit, and your shoe-eating dog, and you can knock yourself out putting on the Rogaine and the Speed Stick – Carrie Bradshaw
What do you guys think? Would you ever buy your guy Rogaine?
Totally agree and laughed out loud about, no, don’t want to talk about it, I’m a guy, let me grill a large slab of meat now. I’m a guy, a gay one, and I saw this aversion to anything remotely resembling effort when it comes to hair. I’ve always had baby fine hair, which meant do it, or wear a hat because of the texture. Felt much more presentable making it look good than it looking f-ed up. Fast forward to my 40’s, last year went through chemo for cancer. Was hard to lose my hair, and after dealing with that, I realized what an asset and what a big part of your identity and a plus for your appearance it is, I began to use generic Minox 5% and take biotin and use a special shampoo for thinning hair (even though it wasn’t really thinning very badly, it makes my hair look good). Hell, I color it too (use three tones so it doesn’t come out one matte color). And guess what? Everyone who sees me says I look great, and one cousin said “You look 15 years younger”. I know I’m a big fat homo, but, hey, who cares. Just do not get it either–it’s very simple to use, 40.00 for a 3 month supply and if you are thinning, it can help maintain what you’ve got and make your hair look thicker. Glad I’m not one of those stubborn, put your head in the sand, meat grilling types.